A Second Chance
by AnneM.Oliver
Summary: Everyone deserves second chances & Hermione and Draco are no exceptions.She's recently jilted,he divorced,but they might find their second chances with each other. Happiness is earned, not deserved or expected, as they'll find out together. Romance/Myster
1. 1 Statues and Fire

**Disclaimer: all characters belong to JKR and Warner Brothers and I make no monetary gain by using them in my stories**

Summary: Everyone deserves a second chance. Hermione was no exception. However, she never imagined in a million years that her second chance would come by way of Draco Malfoy, or that she would be giving him his own second chance. Happiness was something earned, not deserved, as they would both discover together.

Romance, Mystery, General.

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**A Second Chance **

By

Anne M Oliver

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**Chapter 1: Statues and Fires:**

"Wake up, Hermione."

'Oh my gosh,' she thought. She rolled over in bed and then sat up and stretched. She had a horrid night. She tossed, turned, and barely slept, and when she did finally sleep, all she did was dream of him. This was a mistake. She was running away from her problems, and that wasn't like her. She usually faced them head on, instead of running away.

There was a knock on her door. She scrambled from bed and outside was Ginny Weasley. "Aren't you dressed yet?" the girl asked.

Hermione looked down at her nightgown and said, "Apparently not." She said, "Give me twenty minutes." Hermione knew twenty minutes would turn to a half an hour, but still she hurried to shower and dress. When she got to the bottom of the stairs at the inn, she saw Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood waiting for her.

She joined her friends and said, "Do I have to go?" She knew she sounded like a five year old. She even whined a bit. Ginny gave her a death glare that would rival Mrs. Weasley, and Luna merely smiled.

Ginny took her arm and said, "This holiday is for you, Hermione! It's to make you forget all about Mark! We're your advocates here, not your enemies. If you would rather stay in bed all day and wallow in despair, go around saying, 'woe is me,' then go right back upstairs."

Hermione smiled for the first time in two weeks, threw up her hand, and said, "Fine, let's get this bloody holiday started!"

They hired a car to take them to their destination. They were staying in a magical community called North Devonshire. There were all sorts of sights for them to see, old ruins, grand estates, and one of the largest Wizarding libraries in the world. There were shops, cafes, and even the seaside. It would be heaven if she were with the one she was supposed to be with, instead of being Ginny and Luna.

When she planned this little trip, she was still with Mark. They were to come here together. Then 'it' happened, and her life changed drastically and permanently, and she was left to pick up the pieces by herself. Well, not by herself. Her friends were there for her. The problem was that none of her friends even knew about Mark until after they broke up. She never told a soul, not even her mum and dad.

It wasn't that she was ashamed of falling in love with a Muggle. She wasn't. It wasn't as if they wouldn't have accepted him, because they would have. It wasn't because he didn't know about her magic (because he didn't). She was sure he would have accepted that as well.

The problem was that he was married.

No, the real problem was that she didn't know that he was married until the day they broke up. God help her.

She didn't know that important detail about his life until a day last week when they met in their usual café, ordered their usual lunch, and she showed him the brochures for their holiday. She purposely picked North Devonshire because it was a magical community. She was finally going to open up to him and tell him the truth. They had been seeing each other for six months, and she felt it was time. She hated lying to him, and hiding him from her friends. Little did she know that he was the bigger liar of the two of them. Little did she know that he was hiding their relationship as well.

They began to eat, she showed him the brochures, and suddenly, he took her hand and said, "Hermione, I have something important to tell you, and I don't know where to begin."

She smiled at him, almost apologetically, and said, "You know you can tell me anything. I love you."

Then he proceeded to tell her that he was married, and that his wife was twelve weeks pregnant! He was breaking up with her! He lied and he was sorry. Well, not as sorry as he would have been if she weren't in a Muggle café! The urge to hex him was so strong that she had to leave immediately, or she would have probably been arrested! She ran back home, and cried for two days.

She didn't cry so much because she lost the love of her life. He wasn't it. She didn't cry so much because he broke her heart. He didn't. She cried because she felt embarrassed, ashamed, and foolish for not knowing anything about the man whom she supposedly loved. Hermione hated feeling foolish.

Her friends knew something was wrong, but once again, she kept it all in. She told no one. She merely told Harry and the others that she had been dating a man named Mark and that they broke up and that she was in a funk and needed to have a holiday. He suggested she take Luna and Ginny. Now, here they were.

They pulled up to the massive estate, and Luna, who was in the front seat with the driver, leaned back and said, "This is Carrington House. It was once the summer home of an old wizarding family called Carrington. The house is reported to have one of the largest collections of paintings, both Wizarding and Muggle, in Southern England." She turned back around as they drove up the massive drive. Hermione looked out the window at the sprawling estate, the beautiful grounds, and she only wished for one thing. She wished she were back in bed at the inn.

They walked through the grand hall with all the other tourists, being guided by a haughty looking, and rail-thin man of about 100 years old. He droned on and on about this artifact, and that artifact, and this suit of amour, and that tapestry. They walked from one room to the other, until they finally ended up in the art gallery on the second floor, and all Hermione could think was, 'this is the best the art collection in the Wizarding world?' As the crowd passed through the gallery, to head toward the rest of the second floor, Hermione took her leave.

She walked back down the long warren of hallways and stairwells until she found the grand hall. She walked out of the massive grounds and back down the drive. She had no destination, so she just sauntered. She walked off the drive, toward the eastern part of the grounds. She saw a little garden. Certain that the gardens would be part of the tour, and she would meet back with her friends, she wandered down toward the flowers, shrubs, and foliage, and sought refuge in their folds.

She walked along the paths, stopping occasionally to smell a flower, or examine a bush. She found a stone statue and she walked up to it. She put her hand on the stomach of the male nude, and looked up at the face. For some odd reason, the face looked familiar. The statue was much taller than she was, so she stood on tiptoes, leaned forward, and looked at the white marble face closer. That was when the unthinkable happened. The statue tipped, and Hermione yelped, and then without warning, it fell over backwards, and broke in three pieces, with the head went rolling down the garden path.

She winced and placed her hands over her mouth. That was when she heard, "What the bloody hell have you done?"

She turned toward the masculine voice and saw a man running toward her. He had a cigarette in his hand and as he ran, he flicked it toward the shrubbery. She walked over to the head, and leaned down to examine it closer.

He leaned down beside her and said, "If you didn't like the statue, Granger, you could have just walked away. You didn't have to behead the poor fellow."

She looked up from her crouched position at the mention of her name, into the slate grey eyes of none other than Draco Malfoy.

She stood up and said, "I didn't do it, Malfoy. I mean, I leaned on it, to get a closer look, but I didn't push it."

He smirked and said, "You leaned on it? Are you that much in need of a male body that you had to lean on a statue?"

"I was just, oh, shut up and help me fix it before someone finds out," she said.

She took out her wand and levitated the head, as Draco levitated the body. They placed the pieces back together and when they were in place, she used a spell to bind them, however there were still cracks in the marble.

She ran a finger along one crack, right in the middle of the statue's well-toned abdomen, and said, "Do you think anyone will notice?"

"Yes, and I think you're in trouble," he said laughing.

"In trouble?" she asked.

"That statue's centuries old! It's worth tons of galleons! They'll probably expect you to replace it!" he said. "Why are you here, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm on the stupid tour," she said, walking around the statue, still looking at it, with a disconcerting look on her face.

"Stupid tour?" Draco asked.

"Yes, the tour is stupid," she said, leaning toward the side of the statue to look at Draco. Her hands were on the statue's hips.

Draco looked at her hands, laughed, and said, "Now you're trying to assault it from behind." She let go of the statue but had to laugh. He asked, "Why is the tour stupid?"

"Well, it's boring, it's being led by a man who's apparently older than dirt, and who only tells everyone things that no one cares about, and then the brochure claims this house has the best art collection in the world, apparently, and when we go to the measly art gallery, there's only like fifty painting in there. They should do it all differently. At least these gardens are nice," she said, as she walked toward another rosebush. She leaned down to smell.

He admired her from behind. He hadn't seen Hermione Granger for perhaps years. He saw her at some restaurant years ago, with Potter and Weasley, and he saw her at a picnic a while back. Before that, he last saw her at school. She was always pretty, but he now thought she was breathtaking, and he didn't notice a ring on her finger. Strange.

He picked one of the yellow rosebuds from its stem and handed it to her. She said, "Now you'll probably be in trouble, for picking a rose." She brought the rose up to her nose and then twirled it in her fingers.

He said, "The tour doesn't come out to the gardens."

"It doesn't?" she asked. He shook his head no. She said, "See, this is a wasted trip and a stupid tour. These gardens are magnificent, and the tour should end here. If I ran this place, I would do it all differently. Someone should tell the owners."

"Yes they should," he said with a small knowing smile. He took the rose from her fingers and placed it in her hair. He didn't smile when he did it. He almost looked pensive. She reached up to remove the flower, but he said, "Leave it," so she did.

She pointed over his shoulder and said, "I might have knocked a statue over, but you are the one they'll blame if the whole place goes up in smoke."

He turned to where she pointed and saw that a small fire had started where he threw his cigarette. He ran to the small patch of dry grass and started to stamp on the fire with his foot. Then he used his wand to finish putting out the embers. She said, "Look, you singed your pants. Did you burn yourself?" She leaned down, her hand on his arm, to look closer at his pant leg. The feel of her hand on his arm left his skin tingling. He didn't burn his leg, but he was sure his arm was on fire, and the fact that it was Hermione Granger to cause this fire shook him to his core. He looked down at her curly head and felt confused.

It had been such a long time since Draco Malfoy had any kind of stirrings for a woman, and the last time he felt such a stirring was for the exact same woman, at the aforementioned picnic! This was Hermione 'effing' Granger for goodness sakes. He put his hand on her shoulder and lifted her up. "I'm fine. Let go of me." He said it more curtly than he meant to.

She noticed her hand on his arm, and assuming that the old blood prejudice between them remained she removed it quickly and said, "My apologies. I didn't mean to touch you." She felt her throat close up, and dizziness set in. She felt embarrassed at her forwardness. She turned to leave and over her shoulder she said, "Really, I'm sorry, Malfoy." She started to run up the path, leaving Draco behind.

She didn't know why he acted so strangely just because she had touched him. If her memory served her right, she touched him at a picnic at Theo Nott's house a while ago, and he didn't seem to mind it then.

He felt horrible for being so short with her. She thought he didn't want her to touch him, but it wasn't that. He felt excited at her touch, not disgusted. He ran to catch up to her and he called out her name. He said, "Hermione!" not Granger.

She turned at the mouth of the garden, having just reached the path that would lead back to the grounds of the house. She said, "What?"

"Are you here alone?" he asked. "I mean, in the village? Why are you here again?" He knew he was rambling. He needed to make sure she wasn't here with a husband or a boyfriend. Just because she didn't have a ring on her finger didn't mean she wasn't attached.

"I'm on holiday with my friends, and then after they leave, I'm taking over a cottage that once belonged to Ron's aunt," she said. She just decided that last part. Ron's father offered her use of the cottage for as long as she wanted it. It was right here in the village. She wasn't planning to take the cottage until that very moment. She needed a change. She needed to start over. She would contact her boss at the Ministry tomorrow and tell him that she was taking a sabbatical. Surely, he would understand, but if he didn't, and he fired her, so be it. She could find another job. What she needed right now was a rest, and some peace of mind, and she felt she could get both of them here.

"Where is this cottage?" Draco asked.

"Barlow's cottage, on the outskirts of the village. It belonged to Mr. Weasley's aunt. I haven't even seen it yet," she explained.

He smiled. She was going to be close by. He knew exactly where the cottage was located. He was happy for that. He said, "I'm staying in the village right now, as well."

"Really?" she said. He thought she sounded pleased.

He said, "Well, perhaps I'll see you around."

"Certainly," she answered. "Don't catch anything else on fire while you're here."

"Don't rape anymore statues," he answered back.

"We should go join the tour again, I suppose," she said.

"I think I'll stay out here by myself. It is a stupid tour, or so I've heard," he said, smiling.

"And I think I'll go find my friends and tell them that I'm going back to the inn. It was nice to see you again, Malfoy." She started back up the path. He didn't want to let her go for some reason, and that worried him a bit. He didn't want to start anything with Granger, did he? She didn't seem like a holiday fling type of girl, and he wasn't up to more, surely. Not after the relationship he had just left. However, seeing her again made him realize something. Life was too short for regrets. He realized something else. He had let her go too easily before, after that picnic at Theo's house, and he didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

He ran up to her again and caught her arm. He swung her around. She looked at his hand on her elbow. She said, "Why can you touch me and I can't touch you?" She had a slight smile on her face, to show that she wasn't angry.

That was good, because he really didn't want to start an argument, nor did he want to let go. He smiled and said, "Oh, you can touch me all you want, Granger." He smiled wider and she blushed. The sun was bright and the light played on her chestnut hair and her brown eyes, their golden rims and green flecks, sparkled. He said, "You aren't married or anything of the sort, are you?"

Goodness that was refreshing! That was the very first thing she should have asked Mark! She said, "No, are you?"

Not anymore, he thought. He said, "Incredibly single. Would you like to meet me at a pub tonight? Have some spirits and laughs?"

Hermione noticed that his hand was still on her arm. She noticed how tall he was. She noticed how handsome he had become. She noticed…him! She had a crush on Draco Malfoy! She was here to mend a broken heart/pride, and she instead was having fleeting, flirtatious feelings for Draco Malfoy, pureblood extraordinaire!

He let go of her arm, and his smile began to fade. The reason was that she was taking so long to answer. She covered for her blunder by saying, "Sure, how about a little pub I saw called The Blue Angel? About seven?"

His smile returned and he said, "Seven o'clock it is." Hermione turned from him again, waved her hand at him, and finished her trek back up to the house. When she reached the house, and turned around, she still saw him in the distance. She raised her hand once more, and saw him raise his. She smiled and went back to join her friends.

She started this little holiday to with one intention and now, she had a new intent, and she wasn't certain if it was a good thing, or a bad thing, but she knew one thing for sure…he wasn't married!

(Coming up: Misunderstandings and Moonlight)


	2. 2 Misunderstanding and Moonlight

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 2 – Misunderstandings and Moonlight:**

Draco walked into his paternal grandmother's ancestral home after the tour left and smiled to himself. He couldn't believe he made a date with a witch named Hermione Granger. Who would have believed? Not him.

Wait one moment. Was this a date? They were going for drinks. That meant a date, didn't it? He grinned when he realized how 'rusty' he was at these types of things.

He walked up the back staircase, to the room he was staying in up on the third floor. He hadn't been to this house in eight years. He was only here this summer because he was recently divorced and his brainless ex-wife got their house. There was no way he would ever move back into the Manor with his parents, so he came here for a while. Besides the occasional 'stupid tour' (per Hermione) on the weekends, it was a fairly quiet place.

He took off his shoes and socks and went to the lavatory. He looked in the mirror. He thought he looked older than his 27 years. Much older. He turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat up. He leaned over, with his hand under the spray, and thought about Hermione. He really hadn't even given her a thought in years, yet when he saw her examining the statue of his great grandfather, he was at first curious, then amused, then beguiled, and then smitten. It was nice to have these feelings again. It had been a long time since he felt this way for a woman.

And it was Hermione Granger. He hadn't seen her in years. The last time he saw her was in London, a few summers ago, at some picnic at Theo Nott's house. She had on a white sundress, with little cherries on it. She looked pretty. He remembered shaking her hand hello, smiling at her. During the rest of the afternoon, they spent some time together, off and on. He noticed how animated she was when she talked. He noticed how she threw her head back when she laughed. He noticed the way she cocked her head to the side and nodded her head slightly, mouth closed tight, when she was listening to someone else speak.

Not that he spent the afternoon staring at her or anything.

They even shared a couple of nice little conversations throughout the afternoon. He even gave her a bite of his dessert. And when it was time for her to leave with Potter and Weasley, she walked over to him, squeezed his upper arm and smiled a sweet smile when she said goodbye. Then, surprise of surprises, she leaned over and kissed his cheek. They had even made plans to meet again.

That never happened.

Not that he was pining for her, but he thought of that kiss often. A simple kiss on the cheek was the best kiss he had received in years. That was right before he married Claire.

Merlin help him. He was pining for Hermione Granger.

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Hermione went back to the inn with a spring in her step and a smile on her face, but she couldn't tell anyone why. It was like hiding Mark all over again, except this time she was hiding Draco Malfoy. Her friends would never approve.

The thing was that most of them assumed that she hid the fact that she was dating Mark _because_ he was married. When she told them she broke up with him for that fact, no one, save Harry and Ron, believed her. Even her own parents gave her disapproving looks. Even they doubted her word.

She would never have knowingly dated another woman's husband.

Now there was Draco Malfoy, whom for all the trouble he had caused them in school, had turned out to be a decent human being. He was successful at his job, he was respectable, and boy was he handsome.

She remembered seeing him at a summer party that Theodore Nott gave a few summers ago. He had on white shirt, khaki pants, and he looked an awful lot like that statue today: handsome, polished, and almost perfect. She smiled at him when she arrived, and said hello to him. They shared a few nice intimate moments, including a little incident in Theo's kitchen, when the strap of her dress fell down and he slipped it up her arm. When they left, she remembered grabbing his upper arm and kissing his cheek. At the time, she was slightly embarrassed for being so brash and forward, but when she fell back on the balls of her feet, he smiled at her.

They even made plans to meet again, although that never happened.

That was the last time she had seen him. The years had been kind to him. She wondered why he wasn't married. Maybe something was wrong with him. She giggled to herself at that thought. She wasn't married, and there wasn't anything inherently wrong with her.

She remembered once telling Mark about that picnic. She may have even mentioned Draco to him. That was before she and Mark dated. That was just when they first started having coffee together in the very same Muggle café in which he broke her heart.

She skived off dinner with the girls, feigning a headache. Then, after Ginny and Luna left to go to the restaurant, she went to the pub where she was to meet Malfoy. It was crowded, and somewhat rowdy. She was having second thoughts already. She walked toward the bar and asked if there were any empty tables. There didn't appear to be. The barman told her that it was the middle of the tourist season, so the place was packed, but perhaps there was a table out on the patio.

She went out to the patio and sat down. She ordered a butterbeer and waited for Draco.

He never showed.

She waited 35 minutes and then ordered some food. She ate slowly, the whole time feeling self-conscious that she was alone. A few men offered her drinks, but she turned them down. Finally, an hour later, she paid her server and stood to leave. She was walking back to the inn when she saw a path to the seaside. She decided it would be appropriate to wallow in her despair, walking along the ocean's tide, almost like some romantic movie.

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Draco was sure that she told him the Blue Moon Bar. Didn't she say the Blue Moon bar? It was the only upscale bar in the community, so surely this was the bar she meant. He waited outside for fifteen minutes, and then he decided that she must have been early and was probably waiting inside for him, positive that he had stood her up.

He looked for her inside, and when he didn't see her, he waited another 25 minutes. Finally, three fire whiskeys later, and still hungry, he left. He was crossing the street when he saw Hermione's friends, that weird blond woman and the youngest Weasley.

He ran across the street and said, "Hey, Weasley girl."

Ginny looked up and said, "I know your name, Draco Malfoy. Surely you know mine."

He did. He just wouldn't admit it. "It has escaped me. Sorry. Say, are you on holiday with Hermione Granger, by any chance?"

"Yes, why?" she asked.

"I was to meet her for drinks, but she didn't show," he said.

"You were meeting her?" Ginny asked suspiciously.

"Yes," Draco drawled out. Did the girl have a hearing problem?

"Well, she stood up us too, but because she had a headache. Perhaps she didn't know how to get a hold of you. We're going back to the inn. We'll tell her you were asking for her," Luna answered. The girls started to walk away and he felt so stupid.

Of course, she didn't know how to get a hold of him. He didn't tell her that he was staying at Carrington house, or more importantly, that he was the Lord and Master of the estate. Now it made sense. He waved to the women and crossed back over to the pub. He got a quick bite to eat and then started home. He would try to get a hold of her tomorrow, to make sure she felt better. Perhaps he would send her some flowers.

It was such a clear, crisp, cool summer evening that he decided to walk back to Carrington house, rather than apparate. If he crossed the beach area, he could cut his walking time in half. He took the path that led from the village to the seashore, and whom would he find along the sand, feet in the foaming water, sandals up on the shore? The very woman who claimed to have had a headache, and who stood him up.

"Hey, Granger!" he yelled. She looked up at him. She went over, grabbed her shoes, and walked toward him.

"My, you are only two hours late for drinks," she said. She almost said, 'for our date' but at the last moment, changed it to the word 'drinks'.

"Excuse me," he said, incredulously. "I think you stood me up, Missy. I waited and waited at the Blue Moon for over an hour. Then when I saw your little friends, they said you were off having a headache or some such nonsense, and so I felt bad, knowing that you had no way to reach me to cancel. So I decided to go home, nursing my wounded pride, and who should I see but the very person who lied to us all, having a nice evening stroll along the sand." He said his little speech with a light, airy countenance, but he was actually a bit put out.

She put one hand on her hip and said, "Well, I waited for over an hour for you at the Blue Angel, since that's where we decided to meet earlier, and when you didn't show up, I decided to take a stroll along the sand, to nurse my wounded pride. By the way, I did lie to my friends about the headache, but that was so I could meet you." She pointed at his chest, and then gave him a triumphant look as he racked his brains for the words "Blue Angel". When he got a look of acknowledgement on his face she said, "Ha!"

"Sorry, Granger, my mind isn't what it used to be. The Blue Angel is sort of a dive, and The Blue Moon is a right respectable place, so I thought you said that."

"I'm not from here, now am I, Malfoy? How would I know a respectable place from a hole in the ground?" she asked.

"Good point," he said with a laugh.

"Good night," she said back, with no anger, and she turned to leave. He ran to catch up with her. "Where do you think you're going?" she asked.

"Where are you going?" he asked back.

"To the inn," she said.

"Me, too," he lied.

"You're staying at the same inn? Why haven't I seen you there?" she asked.

"Perhaps your vision needs checked. Perhaps you need some spectacles. Perhaps you need to see a chemist for some eye drops. There are all sorts of reasons why you haven't seen me, my dear," he droned.

She couldn't help but smile. She turned toward him and said, "You're so different than what I remember."

"How so?" he asked, really wanting to know.

"Nice, friendly, pleasant. There are a whole host of adjectives I could use to describe you that I never could have used before," she said.

He considered this statement for a moment, and then said, "If you knew me better, you would know that I'm still a bastard down deep, where it matters."

She laughed again and asked, "And you weren't always this funny, were you?"

"I'm a right good comic," he said. "Always have been. I know back in school I used to always have Crabbe and Goyle in stitches."

Hermione said, "I don't think I ever remember even hearing them talk, let alone laugh or smile. You must not have been too amusing."

"I don't recall you laughing a lot in school," he said. This was nice, he suddenly thought. They were strolling along the shore, the moon lighting their way, having a pleasant conversation. She wasn't a stranger, so he didn't have to put on airs, or pretend he was something he wasn't. And she wasn't someone who really knew him well, so he didn't have to be guarded. She didn't want anything from him, like most women did. Overall, she was next to perfect. He wondered if she knew that.

She said, "I laughed in school, just never around you. It's hard to laugh when someone is constantly calling you names and such."

"Potter always was a prick," Draco said with a laugh.

"Yes, well now, Mr. Malfoy, we know I meant you, not him," she said.

She thought this was nice. He held his arms behind his back, but hers swung easily at her sides. As they walked, she imagined him reaching over and grasping her hand. It would be nice to hold hands and walk along a moonlit shoreline. She felt at ease with him. She did have a history with him, but it was ancient history. He knew her just well enough that she didn't have to tell him her life story, or play a part.

"So, have you ever been married?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"Never?"

"I think I would remember," she said. "You?"

He wasn't sure he should tell her, but what was the harm. "Newly divorced, and loving every minute of it."

"Oh," she said softly.

"Do you have something against divorced men?" he asked, sincerely.

"No, I have something against married men, at least dating them," she said.

"Is this a confession?" he asked.

"Sure, why not. I just got out of a relationship with a married man," she said. She suddenly sat down on the sand. He sat down beside her. She kicked off her shoes again. She clarified, "I didn't know he was married, if you can believe that. I just found out the day we broke up."

"Really?"

"Yes. No one believes that, but it's true. I didn't even tell any of my friends I was dating him until we broke up, so they all assume that I always knew he was married, and that's the reason I hid him," she said. She turned her head to look at him. The wind whipped up behind them and blew her hair across his face. He reached up to move it aside, and she turned back to look at the sea. The wind continued to blow, and now her hair was blowing forward, getting in her own eyes.

"I believe you," he said. He reached out to smooth her hair again. He really didn't need to, he just wanted to. "And who cares what everyone thinks. But, if I may ask, why didn't you tell anyone you were dating him?"

She said, "He was a Muggle."

"Now that's disgusting," he said. "I would hide that, too."

She laughed again. It was good to laugh. "Why did your marriage fail?"

"It's complex, yet it isn't. We just wanted different things," he said. That was a bunch of shite, but she didn't need to know the particulars. Not right now, and maybe not ever. He was enjoying her company, and he didn't want to ruin things.

"Do you have children?" she asked.

He swallowed hard for a moment and said, "Yes."

She didn't expect that answer. She said, "How many?"

"A son," he said.

"Does he live with your ex-wife?" she asked.

He stood up and said, "Enough personal talk." He didn't seem angry, so she didn't want to push the point.

"Okay," Hermione said. They weren't even on a date, so he didn't owe her any explanations, so she wouldn't ask any more personal questions. He held out his hand to help her stand. She took his hand, gladly. He pulled her up, effortlessly. He held on to her hand long after they stood. He held it with both hands, rubbing his thumb on the top of her hand. Then he dropped one of his, but kept her hand in his other hand. He pulled her along toward Carrington House.

"The inn is that way," she said, pointing over her shoulder.

"I'm not staying at the inn," he said.

"You prat!" she said with a laugh. "You lie as much as you always did, I see. So that's why I haven't seen you there."

"Yes, that's why."

"Where are you staying?"

"Carrington House," he said.

"Why?" she asked.

He dropped her hand. "Excuse me?"

"Why would you stay there? I didn't know anyone even lived there anymore. Are you staying with the owners? What?" she asked.

"I believe a lot of people live there. There's something like twenty staff members alone. I went to school with the estate manager, so he was kind enough to let me stay a while. The ex-wife took the house, damn bint," he said. He smiled so she wouldn't think he was hostile toward his ex, although he couldn't stand the sight of her.

"Who's the estate manager?" she asked.

"Remember Phillip Cranston? He was three years ahead of us, Slytherin?" he asked.

"Not really, no," she admitted.

"Well, anyway, he's my mate, and he runs the place, so I'm staying there until I sort some things out, you know, get my head together," he said. He wasn't sure why he didn't tell her he owned the place.

She stopped walking and said, "How long have you been divorced."

He said, "Thirty-four hours and fourteen minutes." He turned toward her. She was standing with her mouth open. He laughed, reached over to shut her mouth by placing his index finger on her chin, and added, "It's actually been a bit longer than that," because he wasn't sure if she had known he was joking before. He had actually been separated from his ex-wife for almost a year.

"Oh," she said less than eloquently.

"How long have you been broken up with the married bloke?" he asked.

"A bit longer," she said, still shocked. For her it really had only been about 36 hours, but he didn't need to know that. She saw a path that led to the street and said, "I really have to go that way to get back to the inn."

"Come to Carrington House with me," he said.

"Why?" she said, but then she added, "I really can't. You don't even own the place. Wouldn't that be a bit odd? Anyway, I want to get to bed, because I'm going to Barlow's cottage tomorrow. Air it out; see what I need to do to make it livable."

She rushed away. Why would he ask her to go home with him? Did he assume that just because she was dating a married man, that she was the type to sleep with a man on the first date? This wasn't even a date! This was drinks! No, this wasn't even drinks! It was a missed drink date that ended up being a walk along the shore.

He watched as she ran away. She didn't even say goodbye. She didn't kiss his cheek this time. He shouldn't have asked her to come back home with him. That was a mistake. Hell, Draco hadn't dated in years. He forgot about the subtle nuisances of the dating rituals. Double Hell, this wasn't even a date.

He ran after her. When she had reached the paved road, he said, "Granger!" She stopped and faced him. "I would feel better if you would let me walk you back."

She said, "That would be nice." She could always apparate, but walking with Draco would be nicer. They started down the road, and she wrapped her arms around herself. He took off his jacket and placed it over her shoulders. They walked in silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It just was.

He thought about things as they walked. What did he want from her? What would she offer? Did he want friendship, or more? Was he ready for more? He had just ended an almost three-year marriage. Jumping into another relationship so soon was like going from the frying pan into the fire - in general, a bad idea. Were the thoughts he was entertaining about Hermione a bad idea as well?

They reached the inn and she handed him his jacket. "Maybe I'll see you again, if you're staying here in North Devonshire for a while, that is. After all, it might be nice to have a friendly face nearby. I think I'll like this county. I think I need to be around magical people for a while. Also, the girls are leaving on Sunday evening."

"I am staying here a while, and I'd like to see you again," he said. Should he kiss her? Did people kiss after an 'undate'? She kissed him that time three years ago, and they weren't on a date back then. He wouldn't mind another kiss. He wouldn't mind initiating the kiss. He was left without that option when she leaned up, hand on his arm, and she kissed his cheek. Just like the last time. She smiled, perhaps the prettiest smile he had ever seen, and she walked up to the red door of the inn and disappeared.

He was left with a sort of 'Hermione Granger' dilemma. He wanted to see her again, but as more than friends, but even he knew it was apparent that neither of them was ready for more. Therefore, he would take things slow. But just for now.

(Coming up: A Broken door and a Story)


	3. 3 Broken door and A Story

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 3: A Broken door and a Story –**

As the three friends approached Barlow's cottage, they all three had different expressions on their faces. Hermione's was one of shock and worry. Ginny's was one of horror, and Luna was of a contemplated awe.

"It's a wreck!" Ginny said of the stone and stucco cottage, with gables, broken shutters and a thatched roof.

"It needs so much work," Hermione echoed.

"I think it's wonderful. I get very good vibes from it. I think you'll get good rest and restoration here, Hermione," Luna said.

Ginny was about to tell Hermione that her father said the key was over the eaves, above the door, under a little iron emblem of a snake and a lion, but before she could say a word, Hermione's hand went on the doorknob, and the whole door fell inward, landing inside the door.

"I guess you won't need a key," Ginny said.

Hermione waved her hand over her face to dispel the dust. She stepped right on top of the door as it covered the threshold and into the small cottage. There was a small, dark hallway with a bedroom on the right, and a larger room, which served as both living room and kitchen on the left. There was a small lavatory off the bedroom, with a door that led out to the hall, and a large covered porch off the back, which faced the seashore. They were up high, and the hill that the cottage was on was rocky, so it would be a dangerous trek down to the shore, but just the thought of waking up to this wonderful view each morning brightened Hermione's prospects at staying here considerably.

Luna pointed to a trapdoor in the ceiling, in the hallway between the main room and the bedroom. She said, "What's up there?"

"An attic space. If you pull the trapdoor, a set of stairs will fall down. When we came here as children, we would all sleep up there. It was spooky even back then," Ginny said.

Hermione pulled on the rope, and a set of stairs came down. She let them fall into place and she said, "We might as well let it air out with the rest of the house." She went to the other room and began opening all the windows with her wand.

Soon, all the women were opening windows, and using magic to take away layers of dust from years of neglect. Before long, the place was starting to look halfway livable. When it was time to go to lunch, Hermione told the other two women she wanted to continue working. Her luggage and some items from home were being delivered later, and she didn't want to miss them.

"Remember, it's our last night, so we have to have some fun tonight," Ginny lectured.

Hermione promised and the women left. She walked in the bedroom and stripped the bed of its old linens. She used magic to clean the mattress, and then she stooped down to take some clean sheets out of a basket, where Luna had just placed them after washing them.

She threw the bottom sheet on the bed, and after securing three corners, she leaned across the bed, almost on her stomach, to secure the last. Draco Malfoy had let himself into the cottage, since the door was propped up next to the house, and he stood in the doorway of the bedroom, enjoying the view.

"There has to be an easier way to do that, although I'm not complaining," Draco said, still admiring her backside.

She turned to face him. She realized she was on a bed, on her stomach, so she scrambled off quickly. She looked down at her cut-off shorts, dirty t-shirt, and was embarrassed for him to see her like this. She pulled her hair out of the messy bun she had it in, and shook her hair out before saying, "I wasn't expecting you."

He walked over to the top of the bed, to the corner that was left uncovered by the fitted sheet. He pulled the corner of the sheet to cover the mattress and said, "Look Mum, no magic. I did it on my own."

"Oh, go on," she said, waving her hand in front of her face.

"This is a, shall I say, a quaint little domain," he said, looking around and fingering items in the room with a look of disgust on his face. The bedroom had a large stone fireplace. He looked at it and said, "Is that thing hooked up to the Floo network?"

"I haven't a clue. There's one in the main room, too," she said. She walked down the little hallway and out the door to the back porch. She said, "Before you say anymore disparaging remarks about my humble abode, look at that view. Isn't it lovely?"

He was watching her face, and her smile, and the way her eyes danced, and without looking at the view he said, "Breathtaking."

She turned to him, noticed that he was staring at her, and she blushed and then looked down. She leaned against the porch railing and said, "Why are you here?"

"Shall I go?" he teased.

"No, you may stay, but how did you know where this cottage was? I don't remember telling you. Did I even tell you the name of the cottage? It's Barlow's cottage, by the way," she said. She grabbed one post of the porch and hung onto it with one hand, and leaned toward him with a gleam in her eye. "Isn't that a lovely name? Barlow's cottage?"

Draco thought she was mad. He said, "It's called that because that was the name of the family who originally lived here."

"How do you know?" she asked.

He knew because this house was on HIS estate. It really belonged to his family, but many years ago, the cottage, but not the land, was given to Mr. Weasley's elderly aunt by his great-uncle. That was how he knew where it was, and the name. For some reason, he wasn't ready to divulge all of this to her yet, so instead he said again, "Shall I leave?"

"No, you can stay, if you brought me a housewarming present," she teased. She stood upright and sat on the porch railing.

He leaned forward, looked at how high they were, and said, "Don't fall; it's a long way down." He would take this opportunity to hold onto her, merely for safety reasons, but she took his word seriously, and she jumped back down. He squinted one eye and then smiled a wicked smile. He would have to find another reason to hold her later. He walked up to her and said, "Pick a hand. If you pick correctly, you'll have your housewarming present. Come on now, I don't have all day. Which hand?"

He presented both closed hands to her. She pointed to his right hand. He held it up and it was empty. She said, "I guess I don't get a present."

He said, "Oh, this is the correct hand." Then he placed his hand behind her head, and when he brought it to her face, he was holding a bouquet of wild flowers and daisies.

"My, you must know magic, Mr. Malfoy," she said, taking the flowers from him and walking back inside. She crossed over to the main room, found a large glass, filled it with water and placed the flowers in the glass. She placed the glass on the table. When she turned back around, he was right behind her. She said, "What would I have gotten if I picked the other hand?"

"Find out," he said. He held out his left hand, fist closed. Hermione touched the top of his hand with her finger.

He turned the hand around, and slowly opened his fingers. It was empty.

"I made a good choice," she said.

"I don't think so," he said.

"There's nothing in that hand," she stated.

"Oh, really?" he asked. He looked at his hand, and then presented it to her again and said, "It had a kiss in there before I left the house. I must have dropped it somewhere."

"A kiss?" she said.

"Yes, and a damn good one, I wager," he said.

"Maybe I'll pick that hand another time," she said. She couldn't believe she was openly flirting with him, and him with her, and how much she was enjoying it.

He stepped closer, wondering if he would scare her by being so brash. Wondering if he was scaring himself as well. He lifted his left hand to her cheek, and said, "Maybe it's there. Check again." He stroked her cheek, and held his hand there. She took his hand off her face, and with it cradled in both of hers, she opened his fingers. Though it was a simple touch of fingers and hands, skin on skin, it was singularly the most sensual thing he had ever felt. She moved her index finger across his palm and said, "I'm relatively sure there's no kiss in there."

Something akin to an electrical current gushed through his body. What were they both doing? Were they playing with fire? He brought his right hand up to the back of her neck and pulled her toward him. Hermione dropped his left hand and placed hers on his chest. She bit her bottom lip and he felt torn. He wanted to kiss her so badly. She had kissed him twice now. That just wasn't fair in his opinion! He wanted his due. He leaned closer, fully intending to place his lips gently on hers, to kiss her swiftly, but before he could, she suddenly sprang away.

She started to dust a table, which was apparently already clean. Without facing him she said, "Too bad that hand was empty. I might have liked that present."

He thought that she just might have, and he would have as well, if she hadn't bolted like a scared little lamb. He smiled and said, "Too bad you didn't pick what's in my pocket."

She turned to him swiftly, saw his playful smile, and she laughed aloud. She said, "You're a hoot. I think divorce agrees with you."

"So are you really going to stay in this god-forsaken hole in the ground?" he said.

She threw the dust rag at him. "Yes! I like it here."

"What are you going to do all day long?" he said.

"Write," she said. "I thought I would make the attic into a little office."

He looked confused. "I didn't know you wrote. Don't you work for the Ministry?"

"Department of Magical Artifacts and History, yes, and it can be somewhat boring and limited sometimes. I'm taking a leave of absence. In fact, I may not go back at all."

"What are you going to write?" he asked. He leaned against the table.

"I want to write a mystery, or a historical novel, or some other piece of fiction. I don't really know yet, but I want to give it a go," she said. She sat on a loveseat by the fireplace hearth. He came over and sat next to her.

"Write a mystery. I'll help," he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Aren't you going to laugh at me? Or tell me that I'm wasting my time? Or that I'm lacking direction?" she wondered.

"No." He suddenly frowned. "Are those things others have said to you?"

"Yes, but of course. No one believes I can do it. My mother said that it's ridiculous and that I've never shown an interest in writing before, but that's not true. Just because she's not aware of something, doesn't mean it's not a part of my life. I hide a lot of things from people." She felt like she could share this with him, and she wasn't sure why. She continued, "I've always written poetry and short stories. I've just never told anyone." She suddenly looked at the floor. She said, "It is a bit daft, but I just want to do it, even if it's just as a lark."

"Well, hip-hip hooray for you, Granger. I think you should. I'll even help." He stood up and walked in front of her. "I think you should write a mystery. Have the setting be a small cottage by the sea. A shabby cottage by the sea."

"Write what you know, gotcha," she said.

"The heroine needs a really strong name," Draco said.

Hermione shot out of the loveseat and said, "Miranda! I've always loved that name."

"Great, Miranda it is," Draco said, playing along. He walked around her and said, "For the last name, we need something simple, plain."

"White?" she said.

"No, but I like the colour theme," he said.

"Gray?" she asked, then added, "But spelled with an 'A' not and 'E'."

Draco said, "Miranda Gray, with an A. I like it. Now, the hero needs a name denoting his dashing, blond good looks."

Hermione turned to him and said, "Blond?"

"Yes, blond!" Draco said.

"No, he's got raven black hair, stubble on his cheeks, and he's a rogue. We'll set our story during the Napoleonic wars, or perhaps right after. I love the regency era. We can say he was injured at the battle of Waterloo, and he came back to the county of Devin, a broken and bitter man," Hermione waned. "And his name with be Waring Glynn, with a Y before the N." She laughed at when she realized it rhymed, just as Miranda Gray with an A, rhymed.

Draco laughed and said, "And it's up to poor little Miranda Gray, with an A, to save his soul and earn his love."

Suddenly, Hermione sat down and said, "This sounds more like a romance than a mystery."

"Oh, we can throw in a murder or two, and perhaps he can be the lost son of some duke, and she's really his long lost sister," Draco said, sitting beside her again.

Hermione laughed and said, "A romantic mystery about incest? I don't think so, Malfoy."

He smiled again and said, "Well, it's a start anyway, and if you need help writing any of the love scenes, I'm your man."

"I'll remember that," she said. She was sure she was blushing again.

The way her cheeks reddened reminded him of that blasted picnic again, three years ago. He remembered that they were standing in the kitchen of Theo Nott's house, and she was pouring some iced tea into a glass. He walked up to her that day and said, "Thanks, I was thirsty." Then he downed the whole glass, sat it on the table, and said, "Yum."

He expected her to throw some sort of fit, even though he was just playing around with her, but she didn't. She blushed. The way she blushed just now.

"Would you like to go for dinner tonight?" he asked.

"It's the girls last night. We're going out. Please, though, join us," she said.

"I doubt they would want me to join you," Draco said, in an unassuming way.

"I want you to, though," she said. "We might need to work on the book tonight," she joked.

"Okay, then," he said. He stood up and said, "I'll let you get back to work."

She walked with him to the door and said, "Meet us at the inn at 6:30. The Inn, Malfoy. Can you remember that? I didn't say something else. I said, The inn."

"You'll never let me live that down, will you? You have to admit, the Blue Angel and the Blue Moon sound very similar," he said, winking at her.

They stood in the open doorway and she said, "Yes, they both have the word blue." She looked at the ground.

"What's the name?" he said. She looked at him.

"Of what? The inn?" she asked.

"No, Granger," he said.

"Barlow's cottage. You are forgetful. I've told you that twice now," she said.

He placed his hand on the door jam, so that it touched her arm slightly. He again said, "No, Granger. What's the name of our story?"

She threw her head back and laughed, the same way she did years ago at the picnic. She said, "How about we think on it, and both give each other our best suggestions tonight."

"It's a date," he said. And by jove, he meant it this time. Tonight was a date. Tonight he was really going to kiss her, the way people kissed on dates. Before he could say goodbye, she took the lead again, leaning forward, and placing her warm lips on his cheek. She kissed him and then leaned back and smiled.

He had nothing more to say or do, so he disapparated from the very spot. She smiled and walked back in the cottage. She had a date with Draco Malfoy.

(Coming up: A Dance and a Date)


	4. 4 Dance and a Date

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 4: A Dance and a Date**** - **

After Draco left, her belongings arrived. She placed all her things in the bedroom and then she walked over to the kitchen table, and with her wand, she conjured a piece of parchment and a quill and ink. She smiled when she thought about really writing down 'their story'. She wrote a title, "A Mystery at Devonshire" and then she underlined the title. She smiled. She started her first chapter.

* * *

"_Chapter 1: Bristol Cottage"_

_The small cottage sat on the edge of a rocky cliff, overlooking the sea. It was once the childhood home of Miranda Gray's great aunt. Now it was all hers. In fact, it was all she had in the world. Her mother and father died when she was just a child, and she was sent to live with a dowager aunt who treated her as nothing more than a servant. She went from being "Lady Miranda" daughter of "Lord and Lady Gray" to plain, simple Miranda. The house that was once her family home was entailed to her father's cousin, and he was now Lord of the Manor, and she was sent away to live with her elderly aunt. When her aunt died last year of consumption, she assumed she would be out on the street._

_Therefore, imagine her surprise when her aunt died and she found out that the old lady, who never had a single kind word for her in the last ten years that she lived with the woman, actually left her this small cottage. The cottage, called "Bristol Cottage," was a small stone hovel, with a thatched roof, gabled windows, and a front door, which was hanging from its hinges, but more than that, it was now home._

* * *

Hermione put down her quill and re-read the first chapter of her very first story, which apparently was going to be a romantic, historical mystery, and she smiled. She wasn't taking this story seriously, but she thought he would get a laugh out of it. She said, "Thanks, Draco," aloud and then rolled up the parchment and decided to finish cleaning the cottage, so she could go back to the inn and then have plenty of time to get ready for her date!

Later, she apparated to the inn, now with two whole pages of her and Draco's story tucked safely in her purse. The whole time she was getting ready for dinner she found herself moving over to the table and adding to their little story. She still didn't take the story serious, or consider it to be her greatest achievement, but she thought it was something fun they could share. She looked forward to him reading it. She just plain looked forward to seeing him again. She waited outside the door of the inn, hoping he would arrive soon. She waited only a moment, and then she saw Ginny and Luna walk out the door, laughing, each on an arm of Draco Malfoy.

He walked with them toward Hermione, and he smiled. Well, he seemed to have won them over easily enough. She said, "Where to?"

Luna let go of Draco's arm and said, "Here, Hermione, I think this is your spot."

Hermione smiled and laughed and she was certain her face was red again. Draco held out his arm and said, "Come claim your spot, Granger." He seemed to have an easy charm with all three women, she noticed, as she came to hook her arm into his. Maybe he hadn't been flirting with her the last couple of days. Maybe he was this charming and self-effacing to everyone. Maybe he didn't like her as anything special. She found herself suddenly quiet, shying away from the conversation.

While Draco and the other two women laughed and joked, Hermione grew more introspective. Draco made a joke about something, and Ginny playfully slapped his arm. Luna pointed out something interesting in a shop window, and Draco let go of Hermione and Ginny's arms and stood by Luna while she spoke endlessly about the item, and he actually seemed interested. He smiled at her and said something and she blushed.

So he _**was **_like this with everyone, or at least, with women. His treatment toward Hermione wasn't anything special. He didn't 'like' her in that way. Well, fine, she didn't like him in that way either. He turned from the shop window, to smile at Hermione, but she was looking the other way. He wondered what was wrong with her. He walked up to her, offered his arm once more, which she took, and then he offered his other arm back to Ginny.

As they walked toward a restaurant, Hermione heard Ginny's lilting laugh followed by Draco's loud booming laugh and she found herself dropping her arm from his. She even stopped walking. He turned to look at her quickly, and stopped as well, which caused Ginny to stop. The only person who kept walking was Luna, who was in the front.

"Something wrong, Hermione?" It was Ginny who said it, but when she looked over at her and Draco, it was Draco's expression that showed concern. She tried to dust a smile on her face, but it seemed forced and contrived even to her.

She said, "Nothing."

When she resumed walking, she walked past them to hook arms with Luna. How could she have been so silly? He wasn't interested in her, and seriously, she really didn't need a summer romance anyway. She was here to forget about men. She was here to find herself, for introspection, for her own mental health. Not to find romance. Romance was the last thing she wanted. Scratch that. It might be true that it was the FIRST thing she wanted, but the last thing she needed.

Draco wondered what he had done wrong. Weren't they having a nice time? Didn't they have a nice rapport? He was even making a conscious effort to be nice to her friends, though he actually found them rather boring and mundane. He was only here for her. He had made her blush numerous times just today. He hadn't imagined the chemistry between them, had he?

Luna pointed to a restaurant and they all entered. They were shown to a booth in the corner, with a round table. Hermione scooted in first, and went all the way to the end. Luna followed. Ginny sat next to her. There was room on Ginny's end for Draco, so she assumed he would sit there. There was no room on Hermione's end, so it surprised her when he came over and started to sit next to her. She had to move over to accommodate him.

As he was scooting over the smooth booth to find his way next to Hermione, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Are you well?"

She nodded and opened her menu. She wasn't angry with him. She was embarrassed that she had acted so brazenly toward him. She even kissed him! Heaven have mercy.

She ordered when the rest of them did, but she found herself not joining in the conversation or the jocularity. She rested her head in her hand and sighed. She only joined in the conversation when asked a question. When dinner came, she barely ate.

She knew she should paint on a happy face and stop moping about a relationship that wasn't even a relationship, yet this was how things always felt for her. She always felt slightly on the edge of the crowd: the outsider, looking in. When she was young, it was because she was a Muggle born. When she was older, it was because she was usually the only one that wasn't in a relationship. Even when she was in a relationship, she couldn't tell anyone.

She didn't have Ginny's wicked sense of humor, or easy way with men. Growing up with all those brothers, especially George and Fred would do that to anyone. Moreover, she wasn't a wraithlike beauty with interesting stories, like Luna. She also hoped to goodness that she wasn't some mille-mouthed woman who defined herself by having a man in her life. She wouldn't let Mark's absence, or his previous presence in her life, dictate her self-worth.

Unfortunately, this little debate session in her head, which she meant to be a pep talk, did nothing to make her feel better. She looked over to Draco, who was talking Quidditch with Ginny, and she felt his hand under the table grasp one of hers, which was in her lap. Without looking at her, he gave her hand a squeeze. Then, he kept her hand in his, placing both their hands on the seat between them, even as he pointed his fork at Ginny with the other one, hotly disputed some point about the latest game to her.

This single act gave her courage, and she again wasn't sure why. She smiled a genuine smile this time, and lifted her free hand to begin to eat. He relaxed his tight hold on her hand, but kept it in his.

After dinner, they were having a round of drinks and two men came up to the table. The tall black man asked Ginny to dance. She popped right out of the booth quickly. The other man looked at Hermione, and said, "Miss, would you care to dance." She didn't want to dance with a stranger.

Draco still had her hand, and as if sensing her reluctance to dance with a stranger, he began to pull her out of the booth and he said, "Sorry, chap, this dance is taken." Hermione looked back at the booth as the man offered his services to Luna. Hermione looked back at Draco, and he already had his arms around her.

The song was slow, though Hermione didn't hear the music. She was lost in the grey eyes of Draco Malfoy.

He had both arms around her, his hands low on her back. She was pressed rather snugly up against him, and that felt just fine. She had her hands on his arms, but as the music continued, she found her hands dusting lightly up his arms, to his shoulders, and then around his neck. Next, she did what felt natural. She rested her head on his chest.

"What's wrong this evening, Hermione?" he asked in her ear. His voice was the only sound she heard.

"I'm not being very fun, am I?" she said. She lifted her head to look at him. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's fine. We can all have our low moments now and again," he said. "I just hope it's nothing I've done to bring you to this sour mood."

It was, yet it wasn't. He couldn't help it if he was so handsome and charming and he flirted with anything with two legs. She smiled and rested her head back on his chest. She said, "It's nothing you've done. Sometimes people get in bad moods, or become sad or unglued, and it's not anyone's fault. It just is."

The song continued, and he moved slightly, almost not at all. She followed his lead. It was almost more like they were just embracing out on the dance floor, instead of dancing. He left his left hand on her lower back, and his right hand moved up to her hip, then her waist, and then his knuckles skimmed lightly up her side. When they came to rest on the outside of her breast, he moved his hand back down. She shivered, and he was sure it wasn't from the cold.

She liked him, Damn her! He liked her also, so what was the problem? Even as he thought that, he knew what the problem was. She was recently heartbroken, and so was he. The truth was, Draco's purse hurt more than his heart, and perhaps his pride as well. His ex-wife didn't really break his heart. The demise of his marriage was really his fault, as much as he hated to admit it, even in his own head, but it was true.

Draco thought that Hermione must have really loved the man she was with, and she was hurt, so he needed to act slowly and not scare her away. He wasn't sure why, but he was already planning a future with her in his mind. The future didn't necessarily go past the summer, but he definitely wanted to have a relationship with her. His right hand made one more trek up her side, then he took both of his hands, fingertips lightly traveling her arms, and he grabbed her hands, and withdrew them from his neck. The song was over. He brought her hands together and he kissed the tips of her fingers. She looked at him and even though she wasn't smiling, he saw a smile in her eyes.

He said, "Did that man break your heart, Hermione?"

She realized he still had her hands. She realized they were still on the dance floor, though the song was over, and the crowd was leaving. Most of all, she realized that Mark didn't break her heart, but someone like Draco easily could.

She said, "No, he didn't. He bruised it a bit, and my pride along with it, but he didn't have the power to break it. I wouldn't allow that."

He kept her hand and instead of leading her back to their table, he led her out a back door, out of the dining room. She didn't know where they were going. They passed through the kitchen, which embarrassed Hermione, and out another door to an alley.

Then, out in the alley, all alone, save for perhaps an animal of some sort or two, he said, "I would never break your heart, Hermione." He placed one hand on her cheek, his other still holding her other one captive, and he leaned toward her.

She leaned away, and asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm kissing you," he said, seriously.

"Oh," she said. Even as the word formed on her lips, she felt his lips descend upon hers. He slanted his mouth over hers, and started to apply pressure when a man walked out the back door, lifted a garbage lid, and broke their spell.

The kiss ended before it began. Hermione started to laugh, as did Draco. "Pardon," the man said, which made Hermione laugh even more. Draco had one hand on her cheek, where he kept it as they both laughed. He drew her to him, hugged her tight, and said, "Perhaps we should go back inside."

"Perhaps we should walk around to the front," she said. He kept her hand, as if it was the most natural thing to do. When they reached the sidewalk, she withdrew her hand from his and said, "Oh, I almost forgot! I started our story, for real! It was so much fun, and the words just flowed, and I don't know if it'll turn into anything. I mean, I know we were just having a laugh, and I never imagined that would be the sort of book I would write, I mean, I thought I would write a great piece of literature, but the story of Miranda Gray, with an A, and Waring Glynn, with a Y before the N, just seemed to burst out of me."

He had a smile on his face and he said, "The little things make you happy, huh, Granger? I thought you would pass out from not taking a breath there for a moment."

"Oh you," she said, slapping his chest. "I brought it with me. Would you care to read what I've written so far?"

"Since I'm co-author, I think it's only fitting."

They sat down on a bench on the sidewalk, and she began to read him the story of Miranda and Waring.

(Next Chapter: Letters and Tea)


	5. 5 Letters and Tea

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 5: Letters and Tea:**

After reading Draco her first chapter, she looked up at him to gauge his reaction. She was certain he would laugh, or at least smile. Instead, he looked (and there was no other way to say this) upset.

So she felt embarrassed. She swiftly folded the papers, stuffed them back in her purse, and said, "Of course, it's just a bit of fun. I'm not serious about it in any way, shape or form." She stood up just as Ginny and Luna approached the pair.

Draco didn't know what to say. The story sounded familiar, but she surely couldn't know the history of Barlow's Cottage. She wasn't even alive when Mr. Weasley's aunt came to live in the place. Yet, it was as if she was telling the story of the old woman, and…oh never mind. No, she didn't know anything.

Ginny and Hermione were hugging and Ginny said, "Be sure to write us this summer and let us know how things are progressing." She kissed Hermione's cheek, as did Luna, and both girls walked down the lane toward the inn.

Hermione felt Draco's eyes on her. She wasn't sure why he had suddenly turned sullen and quiet, but just as she told him earlier, people had the right to be in bad moods, and it wasn't always someone else's fault. There was no reason for her to believe she did anything to warrant his present condition. He placed his hand on her shoulder and she turned around.

"The evening's still young. Do you want to take a walk along the beach?" he asked.

What she wanted was a response, preferably positive, about her story. She was somewhat proud of the little thing, and he didn't say a word about it. His hand was still on her shoulder, but now it moved lightly down her arm, to grasp her hand.

"Do I have a choice," she said with a smile. "It seems you're holding me captive."

He held up their joined hands and said, "So I am. To the beach, then."

They found themselves walking along the shore to a group of small boulders. He climbed the lower one, pulling her up as well. He climbed one more, until he reached a higher one. He sat down and patted the space beside him. From their place on the boulders, they had an excellent view of the setting sun. The sky was pink and purple, and the sun was no longer an entity in the sky, but a speck along the horizon.

Draco said, "It's good."

"Yes, it's very pretty up here," she said.

He let go of her hand and said, "No. I'm not referring to the sunset."

"Pardon?" she asked, turning to him.

He smiled, looked up at the darkened sky, laughed aloud once, and then looked back at her and said, "Merlin, Granger, it's a bloody good story, and that was just your first chapter. You've built up a suspenseful beginning, full of intrigue and interesting characters, and you've made me hungry for more. You're a writer. What was your inspiration?"

"Pardon?" she repeated.

More to himself he sighed and said, "Dense as a doorknob." He turned back to her and said, "Its plain, simple English I'm speaking, and since you're a writer, I know you grasp the language. I'm telling you that your book is good. Seriously. Write more."

She giggled, smiled, and then squelched the urge to hug him by hugging herself. She said, "Thank you. I was nervous because you didn't say anything earlier. I thought you hated it. The least you could have done is laugh in my face, I thought, but when you didn't say a thing, I thought it was awful. I already have the second chapter outlined and everything."

"What was your inspiration?" he asked. He really wanted to know if she knew about the mystery surrounding the cottage.

"I don't know, really, the story just flowed," she said.

He regarded her for a moment, and then he believed her. The two stories weren't too similar, he supposed. He was worrying about nothing.

"When you've finished writing the second chapter, may I read it?" he asked.

"I would like that."

They sat and gazed out at the setting sun until the night was completely upon them. She shivered in the night air, and he decided to see her home. He couldn't get his goodnight kiss if he didn't tell her goodnight, could he?

He suggested that they apparate back to her cottage. He had a big day tomorrow. He was meeting with his solicitor. Hermione didn't want the evening to end, but she knew that it must.

They held hands and he apparated them both to the door of the cottage. She turned toward the door, touched the handle, then turned back and said, "It was fun, tonight, wasn't it?"

"I thought so," he said, raising one eyebrow.

"So you had fun?" she asked.

He couldn't help but smile. She was insecure, and he knew that. He said, "A bit."

"I had a bit of fun, too," she said back. She knew he was having fun at her expense, and she didn't mind at all. She looked down at her shoes, and when she looked back up, she could swear he was closer. His eyes looked the most amazing shade of silver in the moonlight. She said, "I always liked your eyes. The colour is so unusual."

"What colour would you say they are?" he asked seductively. He leaned in closer. They were now under the eave over the door, so the light of the moon was no longer on his face. She couldn't make out his eye colour if she wanted to. However, she had it memorized.

_The day of the picnic, so long ago, he was standing by a tree, with a cocktail in his hand. He was all alone. She walked over and said, "A penny for your thoughts."_

"_What?" he asked._

"_Let me rephrase that. A knut for your thoughts," she said._

_He laughed and downed his drink. He placed the glass by their feet and he said, "I'm just thinking that I'm not enjoying this little party as much as I ought. What are you thinking?"_

"_I'm thinking that's a shame, really," she said. It was then that she noticed his eyes. He was under a tree, and the only light shining through the canopy of leaves were streaks of sunlight, which was raining down on them in patches, yet one patch was directly on his face, and his eyes looked to be the most amazing shade of silver._

Now, years later, she thought the same thing. Consequently, she answered his question and said, "Your eyes are the most amazing shade of silver."

"Amazing?" he said, with a slight teasing tone to his voice.

"Quite so," she answered.

She turned again, and he said, "Where are you going?"

"Inside," she answered, coming to face him. He pressed his palm on her cheek.

"Do I get a kiss goodnight?" he asked.

"If you initiate it. I'm a proper English woman, and I would never initiate the first kiss," she said with a smirk.

He threw his head back, laughed, and said, "Hell, Granger, you've initiated, what, at least three or four kisses so far. So much for being a proper English woman."

"I am a proper English woman, and if you say I'm not, I'll hex you," she said with a laugh.

"You're so damn proper it's scary," he said. He leaned forward. He smiled before his lips touched hers. It was the most amazing feeling. She grasped his shoulders for support. She felt his kiss in every fiber of her being the moment his mouth touched hers. He moved his head to the side, and she moved hers to the other. His other hand went around to her back, to press her closer. He pushed her against the door.

He moved his mouth from hers for a moment, smiled at her again (he seemed to do that a lot), and then he leaned down for another kiss. She obliged. He brushed her lips with his tongue, outlining it really, and she soon parted her lips under his tongue. He plunged his tongue inside her mouth, and it was pure bliss. Her hands went from his shoulders to his neck, and played in his hair. He moved his head first one direction, than the other, trying to get more, more, more.

He felt this was the best kiss of his whole life, and it was as if he knew it would be. It was expected and wanted. He finally lifted his mouth from hers and he said, "We definitely have to at least do that again."

"Why don't you stop by for tea tomorrow afternoon, after your appointment with your solicitor?" she said.

"Can we consider it a date? Because I, being the proper English gentleman that I am, only kiss after dates. Never after tea," he joked.

It occurred to her that they were still wrapped in each other's arms. She said, "If you are a proper English gentleman, than I wonder what England is coming to?"

He threw his head back, laughed, and let go of her, reluctantly. He took her hand, kissed the knuckles, and said, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"You can read more of my story tomorrow, if you'd like," she said.

"Oh, I'd like more, alright," he answered cryptically.

She watched, as he left, not even bothering to disapparate. He just walked away. She waited until he was completely out of sight, and then she squealed like a lovesick fool and went inside her cottage.

The next day she started work on the attic space. After all, if writing was to be her new vocation, she needed a space to work. The attic had a gabled roof, and there was a large gable overlooking the side of the house, and another one overlooking the back. Both had wonderful views of the water and rocky coastline below. She decided to put her desk by the window facing the side of the house. She was placing a chair under the desk, when one of the spindled legs became caught in a knothole on the floorboard. She removed the leg, and scooted the chair aside.

She got down on her hands and knees and examined the loose floorboard. She was about to fix it with her wand, when instead, she lifted the board by the knothole. She discovered that the whole board could be removed. She lifted the plank and pushed it aside. She lit her wand and looked inside. There, bundled up with a green piece of ribbon, were yellowed, faded letters, a whole host of them. She lifted the letters from their hiding spot, and pulled at the end of the ribbon. The ribbon fell away, and she picked up one letter, removed it from the envelope, and read.

She read three more letters before she realized, from the shifting light in the attic, that it was definitely close to teatime. She placed the letters back in the floorboard, and went down to prepare for Draco's arrival.

Having come from his solicitor's office in London, and having a bad day since things weren't going his way, Draco almost decided to call Hermione and cancel tea. He really wouldn't be very good company. But then again, perhaps she could brighten his mood. Just thinking about her made him happy.

The news from his lawyer about visitation for his son wasn't going well. He was angry about it, but there was nothing he could do. The boy's mother was giving him a hard time, and he wanted nothing more than to swoop in and just take the boy from the stupid bitch, but his lawyers told him they had to do everything according to the law. He was paying them enough, so they had better do something quickly, because he was losing patience. The baby was his son, and he had a right to see him.

He walked into his room at Carrington House and the caretaker, his friend Phillip, walked in right afterwards.

"I take it things didn't go well in London today?" Phillip asked.

"Not well at all," Draco said. He started to change from his suit to a casual shirt and jeans.

"Where are you off to? I thought we could go to the pub tonight. Meet some women, and all. There are tons of pretty witches on vacation here, you know. A couple of them might take your mind off your troubles," Phillip said with a laugh.

"Well, my mind is on a pretty witch as we speak. Do you remember Hermione Granger?" Draco asked.

"She was a lot younger than I, but everyone knows who she is," Phillips said.

"She's staying up at the old Barlow cottage this summer. She's a writer. She's writing a fictional story, which funny enough, is about a poor girl who lives at a cottage by the sea, and who falls in love with the illegitimate son of the land baron of the area." Draco laughed. "It's really a good story, so far." He changed shirts and said, "Well, I'll be off. Have fun at the pub."

He left on the spot, leaving a worried Phillip behind. Was Hermione Granger writing a piece of fiction or non-fiction? Surely if she was here to uncover long buried secrets, and was about to reveal things in a book, Draco would be more worried than he appeared. Phillip wouldn't worry if Draco wasn't worried.

Draco knocked on the door of the cottage, and Hermione opened the door a moment later. Her large brown eyes shined in the afternoon sun. She had on the same sundress that she wore at that picnic three years ago. Did she know what she was doing to him? Did she know how many times he dreamt of taking that blasted little white sundress, with the red cherries, off her tanned body and ravishing her senseless? She said, "Draco, are you okay?"

"I'm perfect, and so are you."

(Coming up: Character Names and Confessions)


	6. 6 Character Names and Confessions

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 6: Character Names and Confessions:**

She smiled at his compliment. He said that she was perfect. Although she knew that was an empty compliment, in so much as no one was perfect, it was still a nice thing for him to have said.

She said, "Make yourself cozy out on the back porch. I have to get the tea."

He walked outside and saw that she was working on the story again. There on a table, in the corner of the porch, were several pages of parchment with an inkwell atop to keep them from blowing in the wind.

He said toward the open window, "You've been writing more today?"

"Yes," she said from inside.

"May I read it?" he asked, already having picked it up and starting it.

"Sure."

* * *

_Chapter 2: Letters and Lies:_

_Miranda Gray felt totally and utterly happy for the first time in her life. She had Bristol Cottage to call her own, a small garden to tend, a little yellow cat named Jinx for a friend, and a beautiful view of the ocean that would rival an Italian masterpiece._

_As she cleaned out the rest of her aunt's belongings, she came upon some letters. She read them. Seeing that her aunt was deceased, she did not feel she was betraying her confidence. The letters made little sense. They seemed to be love letters, but in them, the man called her aunt "My beautiful bride." He started each letter with the same salutation. Her aunt was a widow. She was once married to Miranda's mother's brother, but he died after only six months of marriage and as far as she knew, her aunt never remarried. This greeting bemused her. Perhaps these letters did not belong to her aunt, yet they described her cottage to a 'T'._

_As Miranda continued to read, she heard the booming voice of a man downstairs, asking if anyone was home. She stood quickly, and gasped. Who could be in her cottage? She slowly walked down the stairs, and once at the bottom, she set eyes on the most handsome man she had ever seen. Hair so black it was dark as coal. Eyes so blue there were almost violet. He was every bit a proper gentleman, from his Hessian boots to his Grecian hairstyle, which was all the rave these days. She looked down at her light ivory morning dress, touched her hair, which was falling from its perfect coiffeur, and she almost ran back up the stairs._

_In fact, she would have, except the man turned toward the stairs and said, "My name is Waring Glynn and I would like to know what you are doing on my property."_

* * *

Draco put the pieces of parchment down and said, "Since when did we decide to make Waring be the Lord of the Manor?"

Hermione came outside with a tray full of tea, biscuits, and cake and said, "I thought it would work, although he's not really the Lord of the Manor, but a cousin of the Lord. I want him to be the proper gentleman, and she a nobody, but in the end, they fall in love. That's the usual formula for a good romance."

"If you want to be usual," he said, smiling.

She gave him a snide smile and said, "Oh shut up and have some tea." She gathered the papers, inkwell and quill and slipped them inside, and then came back out to join him.

He said, "What are you going to have the letters be about, anyway?"

"That depends. I got the idea from some letters I found in the attic under a floorboard," she answered, stirring cream in her tea. He seemed slightly alarm, and she caught his strange look and asked, "What?"

"You found some letters?" he asked.

"Yes, written from someone named Otto to, I suppose, Mr. Weasley's aunt, although he only calls her, 'my precious wife' and that's a bit curious, isn't it, since she was never married. That was the basis for that chapter. A bit of intrigue always spices up a romance, don't you think?" she asked.

He did. Not in this case perhaps, but he did. He said, "I know I'm intrigued by you."

"Well that should spice things up then," she said matter of a fact. He was so surprised by her comment that he actually spit out his tea.

They both laughed and he said, "Seriously, you don't act like someone whose heart was broken."

"I told you, it was only bruised, and I'm a fast healer," she said. She looked down, suddenly feeling bashful. They both reached toward the plate holding the sweets, and at the same time, touched the same biscuit. The last biscuit.

When his fingers touched hers, she had to take a deep breath. He withdrew his hand first and said, "Here is a mystery to spice things up. Who will get that especially wonderful looking biscuit? Will it be me, the dashing, leading man, or you, the old, unmarried spinster?"

"That's not much of a mystery, and I am certainly no spinster. However, since you are the guest, and I am the host, it's yours," she said. "I shall make do with the last cucumber sandwich." She offered him the cookie. He looked at the cookie, then back to her, and leaned back in the chair.

He crossed his legs and said, "Well this is a dilemma. This just won't do. If I take that biscuit, you might call me all sorts of names."

"Never to your face," she joked. She was still holding out the cookie.

He shook his head and reached over to lower her hand. He kept his hand over hers and the biscuit, and lowered them both to touch the table. He said, "I seem to recall a little picnic we went to, and you offered me a glass of iced tea, which I accepted, and then you called me a selfish git."

"You have faulty memory, Malfoy!" she said. She would use her hands to signify her indignation, except that he still had one trapped on top of the table. "I recall that you came into Theo's kitchen, I had just poured some iced tea, it was midway to my mouth, and then all hell broke loose!"

They both laughed.

_What really happened was that she was about to take a drink when he walked into the kitchen. She lowered the glass and he said, "Hot day out there."_

"_Yes indeed," she said, "and that was my very reason for coming inside to get a drink. I was going to have some water, but there was iced tea in a pitcher on the table, and it beckoned to me."  
_

_He grinned and said, "What does iced tea say when it calls to someone?"_

_She lowered the glass and she said, "It says, 'come, drink me, and your thirst will be no more'."_

"_The tea sounds like a ponce," Draco laughed. "Although, I'm so parched that even poncy tea would do nicely."_

"_Poncy tea? That's not a word," she said, leaning against the countertop. "This was the last of it, but if you would like to get a glass and some ice, I'll give you half."_

_He walked up to her, and she swore he almost looked menacing. He placed one hand on one side of the counter, next to her hip, and he reached for the tea with the other and said, "The tea or your life."_

"_What?" she asked with a crooked smile on her face and disbelief in her eyes._

"_Sorry, I meant to say, your tea or a kiss," he smirked._

_She actually laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. Whether he knew that or not, she wasn't aware, but he was so damn close, and he smelled so nice, and she could see how pretty his eyes were, and were they always that nice? She shivered, even though it was the hottest day of the year. She said, "You may have neither."_

"_I could have both," he said. She blinked slowly, once, twice, three times, and then in her nervousness, she handed him the tea and moved away from him._

_She was shocked when he downed the whole glass at once. The truth was, he had to, or he would have thrown the glass to the floor, grabbed her by the shoulders, and ravished her from the sink to the icebox and back. Dribbles of tea made their way down his chin, but he didn't care. When he was finished, he slammed the glass on the counter, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looked over to where she stood with her head cocked to the side and a shocked expression was on her face, and he said, "Ah, so refreshing. Now, about the kiss?"_

_She stomped her foot, but laughed, and said, "You're a selfish git! That was my tea!"_

She relayed her memory of the incident to him, withholding feelings and emotions that were best kept secret, and added with, "You were a selfish git! I offered to share and you took the whole thing!"

"I didn't take the kiss, give me that much credit," he said. He removed his hand from hers, and then reached for the biscuit and popped the entire thing in his mouth. While chewing he said, "I'm still a selfish git!"

She slapped his arm and said, "And your selfishness will cost you the lack of another kiss, Malfoy."

She stood up to clear away the tray and he stood up afterwards and said, "Now, you never made those conditions clear."

"Sorry, but the lips that touched the last biscuit shall never touch mine, Sir."

He followed her inside and said, "You sound as if you're from the regency era along with Miranda and Waring. I can just hear you say, 'Unhand me, Sir."

"Why would I say that?" she asked, turning toward him, dishtowel in hand.

"Because," he said, but that was all he said. He grabbed her and swung her around. He placed one hand on the small of her back, and one on her cheek. His lips approached her ear and he finished his thought, "because I am about to kiss you." Each word felt like a kiss on her ear and neck, and to her heart and soul.

His lips applied minimal pressure at first. He kissed her playfully, and then said, "I wonder," more pressure, "what Miranda," kiss, kiss, "Would do," tug at her bottom lip, "if Waring," sweep of the tongue across her lip, "Kissed her like this?" mouth claiming hers, totally.

All Hermione could think was that Draco Malfoy was trying to seduce her, and damn if he wasn't doing a royally good show of it. Excitement washed over her with equal parts anticipation and confusion. She sunk into him, giving herself over to the wonderful feeling of his lips on hers, without any interruptions, without any pretense, just a very sweet, romantic, overwhelming, mind-boggling kiss.

Her arms wrapped around his neck at the same time that his lips lifted from hers. She opened her eyes to see his glazed expression. He said, "I must say Granger, that was better than the biscuit."

She didn't know whether to laugh or swat him, so she did both. She laughed and pushed away from him and then hit his arm playfully. She said, "You could have easily had them both if you had asked nicely."

"I had them both and I didn't have to ask, so that's even better," he said, sitting down. A dishcloth hit him right in the head. He picked it up from the floor where it landed and folded it nicely as she cleaned up the dishes.

She soon sat beside him at the small wooden table, and she said, "Tell me about your son."

He didn't want to. He looked at the tabletop, then back to her. He said, "Would you mind if I only tell you the basics right now?"

"Tell me whatever you want or nothing at all," she said sweetly.

"His name is Thomas Michael. He's only six months old. He lives with his mother and we're having a bit of a custody dispute," he answered. "I haven't seen him for a while."

"But, Wizarding laws are very concrete," she said back. "If there are no signs of abuse or neglect, then custody is always shared, and in some cases, there are the old laws that place the father as sole custodial parent, if he is a pureblood and she is not, but in your case, I'm sure you're both purebloods." Suddenly, she felt she shouldn't have said anything, because he looked sullen. He refolded the same towel again. She said, "Of course, it's none of my business."

"No, it's not," Draco said, unfolding the towel and folding it again for the third time. "However, I don't want you to think I don't have joint custody because I was abusive or neglectful, and neither do I want you to think I am some pureblood elitist. I'm not that way any longer."

"Malfoy, I don't think those things. I was just thinking out loud," she said.

He stood up and threw down the now folded towel and he said, "I should go." When he met no resistance, and she didn't insist that he stay, he started toward the door.

The truth was, she didn't know what to say.

Once in the small entryway, he turned toward the cottage's main room and said, "His mother's not a pureblood. Hell, she's not even a witch, so we have to go by Muggle law, and it's a bit of sticky wicket."

She stood up and walked over to him and said, "Gee, I'm sorry, Malfoy." She placed her hand on his arm and then she asked, "Your wife wasn't a witch?"

He sighed and said, "The mother of my son wasn't my wife. Let's not talk about it at the moment, alright?" He tried to smile at her, but he suddenly knew he had said more than he intended. What would she think of him now? She had to be running all the scenarios around in her head. Did he cheat on his wife? Did he have a long time mistress? Was it a one-night stand? Was that the reason his marriage broke up? He knew he shouldn't have mentioned a damn thing, because it only opened a larger can of worms.

However, she took his hand and led him toward the door. He presumed to kick him out, but when she opened the door, she led him down the walk, and then sat him down on a stone bench under the front garden's lone, large tree. She sat next to him and said, "We need to discuss our story, Malfoy. What shall we have in store for Miranda Gray, with an A?"

"Don't forget Waring Glynn, with a Y before the N, who is now the heir apparent, apparently," he said with a laugh. She laughed also, and it occurred to him that he thought he might love her. He couldn't really love her, since they had just reconnected and had not really spent any quality time together, but Merlin's beard, he really thought he loved her.

She said, "You know, we don't have to keep referring to them as Miranda Gray with an A and Waring Glynn with a Y before the N. It's a bloody mouthful."

"I like to call them that," he teased. "What if I want to keep saying it all day long?"

She said, "By all means, do what you feel you must. We have to figure out a name for our anti-protagonist. Every great story has to have one. A fellow who seems quite innocuous, but then he turns into the dastardly villain."

"Now that's not a word…anti-protagonist. Poncy might not have been a word either, but anti-protagonist certainly isn't a word. Why not just say the word 'villain'?" he said with a fake frown.

Ignoring him she said, "I think his name should be Parrish Pyle, with a Y instead of an I."

"Now who's being silly," he said. "I think his name should be Perry Hotter."

She laughed so hard she snorted and he joined her laughter. "That seems a bit familiar. I'm not sure Harry would like that. I don't think that's a good name for our bad guy."

"Sure it is," he said. "Perry Hotter, who looks just like Harry Potter. See, it rhymes, too. We could even describe him as having a cloud scar on his cheek."

"No!" she said. She laughed again and he swore that he knew his first instinct about her was true. Suddenly, it was as if he were watching her in slow motion. The way she laughed, the way she pushed her hair off her shoulder, the way her hand came down on his arm to chastise him. The way she shook her head and insisted that they couldn't name the villain after her best friend. Everything about this moment pointed to one thing and one thing only.

Draco Malfoy was in love with Hermione Granger.

(Coming up: Tight Spaces and Trees)


	7. 7 Tight Spaces and Trees

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 7: Tight Spaces and Trees:**

Never in her entire life had Hermione Granger been as frustrated as she was right at that very moment. If she thought it would do any good she would scream. As it was, cursing and blaming the heavens above wasn't helping. It was no good, no good at all. She was stuck.

Not figuratively, but literally. Hermione Granger was sitting in the front of the cottage writing, since that was all she ever did any more, and she spied an emblem of a snake and a lion nailed into the stones of the cottage right above the front door. She decided to investigate the strange looking emblem, which lead her to this point in time.

She came to spy upon the emblem because she was lying on a blanket in the front garden, since the back of the cottage was not conducive to lying around, because it was a complete drop off to the sea blow. One side of the cottage was a gentler slope, and a rocky climb, down to the coastline. The other side had massive trees everywhere. Thus, unless she wanted to lie on the dirt lane that was in front of the wall surrounding the place, the front garden under a lone tree was the only place to lie.

So there she lay, taking a break from writing, and she turned to her back and looked toward her happy little home and she saw an iron, rusted, emblem above the door of a snake and a lion. She recalled Ginny mentioning that was where her father's aunt kept the extra key to the place.

She pulled over the wooden bench that was under the front window, stood upon it, moved the round emblem aside since it was held on with a nail in the top so that it could move easily from one side to the other, and she blindly reached inside.

She felt around for a key, felt nothing but dust, spider webs, and perhaps a spider or two, so she went to retract her hand from the hole and now she was stuck!

Her hand was stuck. It fit on the way in, so she couldn't imagine why she couldn't get out, but she couldn't. Upon further inspection, Hermione realized there must be magic afoot, and perhaps the little space was made this way, so only certain people could withdraw the key, because the hole was bigger than her hand. There was no rational reason why her hand should still be in the blasted hole, twenty-five minutes later!

Her wand was still on the blanket. She never imagined she would need her wand to extract her hand from a hole.

It would do no good to yell or scream, because no one but the seagulls would hear her.

She was becoming claustrophobic, or whatever the phobia was called when a person was confined.

She wondered if she could get in a more comfortable position. She was on her tiptoes as it was, and her legs were cramped something awful.

Too bad that she wasn't to see Draco today. He sent her an owl three days ago to tell her that he had business in London and wouldn't return until tomorrow. She couldn't hang here until tomorrow. She would surely have to go to the bathroom before then.

She looked over to her blanket, thankful that she had secured the pages of her ever-expanding novel by placing her shoe on it. Oh, that's right. To add the cherry on top, she was barefooted, and she was certain that she now had a splinter on the bottom of her foot.

The sky became grey and the wind picked up. Hermione swore by all that was holy if it started raining she would be seriously upset!

"Hey, Granger, nice view," she heard from behind her.

She turned her head enough to see Draco. "Oh I have never in my life been happier to see someone!"

He raised both brows and said, "That's a rather pleasant greeting. It's good to see you, too."

"You're back early," she said, as if it were perfectly natural to hold a conversation with a man while standing on a wooden bench, on tiptoes, with her back to him, and her hand stuck in a hole.

"Yes, I am." He walked around to her and looked up. He said, "What in the bloody hell are you doing?"

"I'm stuck."

He laughed. "Seriously, what are you doing?"

"I'm stuck!" she reiterated with more force.

He nodded, not believing her, but still he nodded and said, "Then you won't be able to do anything to me if I do this," and he ran his hand up her bare leg, to the bottom hem of her shorts, and then he swatted her backside.

She kicked out at him, which only caused the bench to start to tip. She righted it and said, "Don't do that again, and I swear, I'm stuck." In addition, the sensation of his hand on her leg caused her belly to flip-flop.

He was really starting to believe her, but he wanted to have some more fun. "If you're really stuck, then you won't be able to do anything if I do this, either." She glared at him as he walked to her front, put his hands on her ribs, and he tickled her. She squirmed, screamed and laughed but then shouted an obscenity at him. "Proper English lady, are you?"

He walked back around to her back, her head following as long as she could, and she said, "Please, I'll give you anything, don't tickle me again, and get me down!"

He stood behind her, wrapped his arms around her bare legs, which caused her heart to flutter, and he looked around her body up to her face and said, "Anything?"

"Within reason," she said, annoyed.

"I think it might do you some good to stay up there a while longer. Learn some respect," he said. He swatted her bum again.

He smiled and walked around her front, but saw that she truly looked distressed. She said, "Malfoy, I've been hanging up here like this for almost an hour, I have a splinter in my foot, a charley horse forming in my left calf, my shoulder and neck hurts and I am fairly certain this hole has spiders in it. Please, help me, if you even care for me at all. This isn't funny any longer."

Truly, she looked close to tears, and he felt like an arse. He took his wand, reinforced the bench, and climbed up behind her. He was pressed dangerously close to her, and if she wasn't so distraught, he might have enjoyed her close proximity, but as it was, all he did was try to remove her hand manually. "There's no reason why it shouldn't come out, because the hole is bigger than your hand. Did the hole get smaller on the inside?"

"No," she said, feebly. He jumped off the stool and with a quick spell, her hand was released. Before she could hop off the stool, he was behind her; he reached up for her waist, and set her down on the ground slowly. She actually skimmed down his body.

He held her tightly and said, "I thought you were joking, having a laugh and all, so I apologize, Granger."

She actually laid her head on his shoulder. She said, "I'm tired."

"I bet," he declared. He picked her up and kicked open the door.

"I'm not so tired I can't walk," she said. "Although this resembles a scene I wrote today."

He walked her to her bedroom, sat her on the bed, and then kneeled beside her. He picked up her foot, she said, "The other one," as if reading his mind, and then he picked up the other one to find the splinter.

As he removed the splinter, he said, "What was the scene about? Did Miranda get her hand stuck in a house, too?"

"No, but she fell down on the rocks by the shore while taking a walk. The real Lord of the Manor, the legitimate heir, Waring's cousin, and possible half-brother, Lord Westland, whose name is Parrish Hotter, Parry for short, found her first."

Draco found the splinter, but when she said, "Parrish Hotter" he fell on his backside laughing. "You didn't name him that!"

"I really did. I wonder if Harry will sue me? Anyway, his title is Lord Westland, so he's called that or 'Your Grace' during most of the book. Anyway, he rescued her and carried her back up to the cottage.

Draco sat beside her and said, "Is he a rival for her affections? Poor Waring."

"No, no, no," she said. "He's playing her. He wants something in the house. He's looking for her aunt's letters, so he has to befriend her."

Draco said, "Why does he want the letters?"

"Because they might be proof that Waring is the true Lord of the manor, not him," she said.

"My goodness, your imagination knows no ends," he said. "Tell me some of the other names you've come up with."

She smiled and said, "Well, Parrish is set to marry a woman by the name of Prudence Treadwater." Draco sat on the bed beside her and pushed her over again. "You are so physical today," she said.

"I can be much more physical than that, but seriously, Prudence Treadwater?"

"It's a combination of Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass," she said.

"No, a combination of their names would be Dansy Peagrass," he said.

She laughed again and said, "You keep coming up with names like that and I will laugh so hard I might pee."

"You're so not a proper English woman," he said. "What's the butler's name?"

"Gee, I don't know. Don't they usually just go by one name?' she asked.

"Yes," he confirmed. "How about Filch."

"We can't name him after a real person!" she said. "Parrish Hotter is bad enough."

"There's a real person named Filch?" he asked with a straight face.

"From Hogwarts! Squib! Ugly, stringy hair, served no purpose, is any of this ringing a bell?" she asked.

"Oh him, well, he wasn't a real person," Draco remarked. He stood up, looked out the window and said, "It's starting to rain. Is that your story out there getting wet?"

"Goodness," she said, hobbling to the door. He actually pushed her back on the bed, and he went out to get her book.

He brought it back inside, and placed it on the kitchen table, where the real letters were laying. He started to finger one, when she called from the other room, "Draco, could you come here?"

He walked back to the bedroom.

He leaned in the doorway and said, "You beckoned, my lady?"

"Be a dear and bring my shoes in, too." Then she smiled. He smirked but she held up her foot, the one that previously had the splinter, and said, "Ouch, I'm still in pain."

Goodness…the things a man did when he was in love. Of course, she didn't know he was in love, so how did she know she could ask him to do such a task? No matter. He walked out to get her shoes, which were on a blanket in the front garden, under the only tree within the short wall surrounding the house. He bent down to pick them up, along with the blanket, when he realized the similarities to an event that happened on that picnic.

_He had arrived before she had, and he was feeling out of place, though he knew most of the people. He had just become engaged, but not happily so. Claire claimed that she was pregnant, and told his parents, so he was being forced to marry her. Nevertheless, there he was, alone, melancholy, on the last weekend of his bachelorhood, having not told a soul he was engaged, and certainly not having brought her with him._

_He leaned against a tree, and looked out at all of the guests, when Hermione walked around the tree, having not seen him yet. She stepped out of her shoe, and took several steps further before she noticed. She turned to get it, saw him standing there and said, "Hello, Malfoy, be a dear and get my shoe for me."_

"_Is that Muggle speak for 'hello'?" he asked. He bent down, threw her shoe up in the air, and said, "And how is Hermione Granger these days."_

"_She's fine," she answered. She held out her hand and he deposited the shoe. She placed her hand on his shoulder, to steady herself, as she slipped it on her foot. It seemed almost like the most natural thing in the world to do. He looked at her hand, and he felt a strange feeling, one in which he couldn't describe and had never felt before. She said, "Why aren't you with the rest of the crowd, having a good laugh, eating and drinking and being merry?"_

"_Married?" he asked, truly thinking that was what she said._

"_Merry!" she repeated._

"_I'm holding up this tree," he said._

"_Oh, is that a hard job?" she asked, coming around to examine the tree. "It doesn't seem that hard."_

"_You are seriously impugning on my duties," he said. He went back to the tree and leaned his back against it._

"_I'm not saying you aren't doing a dandy job, I just bet anyone could it," she said, coming back around the other direction._

"_Have you ever held up a tree, Granger?" he asked with mocked annoyance._

"_No, but if you could do it, I'm sure it's not hard," she said back._

_He stepped away, gestured toward the tree with his hand, and said, "Give it a go."_

_She leaned her back against the tree, and said, "My yes, this isn't too hard. I could do this all day if I had to." She smiled sweetly at him and said, "You can run along and have some fun, while I hold the tree at bay."_

"_Nah, I'll help," he said. He leaned forward, placing his arm above her head. "We wouldn't want the tree to hit Theo's house, would we?"_

"_You would do that for me? You would help me hold the tree?" she asked._

"_Gladly," he answered. My goodness, were they flirting with each other? He was set to marry another, and here he was flirting with Granger. He placed his other hand on the other side, essentially trapping her. Then someone called her name, she ducked under his arm, and she was gone, poof, just like that._

Well, she wasn't going anywhere this time. He ran back in the house, with her shoes and the blanket, right toward her bedroom, where she still sat on the bed, and said, "Have dinner with me at Carrington House tonight."

"Are you allowed to have guests?" she asked.

He seemed confused, and then he realized he still had never told her that the house was essentially his. He would tell her tonight. He said, "I don't think anyone will mind. Please say yes."

"Yes."

(Coming up: A Painting and Parents)


	8. 8 A Painting and Parents

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 8: A Painting and Parents:**

The last time Hermione Granger felt this excited about a date was, well, maybe never. She and Mark never really had a first date. They went from sitting in the same coffee shop at different tables, nodding hello, to introductions a few weeks later. A week after that meeting they were sharing a table, and a week after that meeting they were there for lunch everyday, and then a week after that she invited him to her house for dinner.

Then they had sex, and the rest was a history. A sordid, black history, which Hermione did not wish to repeat.

They shared a table, coffee, tea, and scones for weeks before they even had dinner together that first time, and not once did he tell her he was married. Not once. When he finally told her, it was at the same coffee shop where they met, and it was on the same day that he broke up with her. He said the longer they dated the harder it was for him to admit the truth. He didn't want to hurt her. What a pile of rubbish. If he didn't want to hurt her, he would have said, "Pass the sugar, by the way I'm married," the first time they spoke to each other, instead of "Pass the sugar, and by the way, I'm Mark, and I've wanted to find the nerve to speak to you for weeks now."

Bastard.

At least she knew Draco wasn't hiding anything from her. He told her right away that he was married, and he told her that he had a child. What other things were there to know? She already knew about his past.

She climbed the stairs to place her story on her desk. It was a very productive writing day. She re-read what she had written, and was pleased.

* * *

_Miranda felt out of place among the elite members of the fashionable 'ton'. She was not fashionable, marriageable, nor was she notable. Her parents weren't of the nobility. Although her Aunt's first husband, her mother's brother, had a title and some land, making her deceased aunt at least a 'lady,' Miranda was just a plain, simple, country girl, past the age of marriage, and not concerned about it in the least._

_When Lord Westlake sent an invitation to her to attend a ball at his estate she was shocked, and was going to refuse right away, but then the man had the gall to send a carriage for her, along with a fashionable dress to wear, and a lady's maid to help her to get ready._

_What did the man want from her? If he thought she was mistress material, he was sorely mistaken. Besides, he wasn't nearly as handsome or dashing as his cousin, the equally untitled Waring Glynn, the first son of a fourth son, so therefore a nobody, just like her._

_She had already danced three dances, but with no other offers coming, she found a door that led outside, and she slipped out into the night. The moon was so bright it shone silver and white. As she gazed up at the full moon, she did not see a man walking toward her until he spoke._

"_Young ladies should not be outside unaccompanied," Mr. Glynn said._

_Miranda gasped and said, "Mr. Glynn, you startled me, sir. And I am not unaccompanied."_

"_Do tell, where is your chaperone? I do not see another living soul," he stated._

"_See the moon above, he watches over me. See the stars? They too, keep me safe from harm. Hear the call of the nightingale, she is telling all of her friends that a dashing man has just come toward me, and he might mean me harm," she said, with a smile._

_He smiled as well. He was dashing, she decided, and although she should not have spoken those words, she could now not take them back. She had heard from some local gossip that Mr. Waring's mother had an affair with Lord Westlake's father, Oliver Hotter, the Duke of Westlake, but that since he was already married, Waring's mother married the Duke's cousin, Matthew Glynn. Miranda did not care if any of that was true or not. She did not care about his legitimacy. She only cared that he was there, and that she was there, and their only chaperone was the moon and the stars._

* * *

Hermione heard a rapping on the downstairs window. She left her story upstairs and went down to find an owl at the window. She opened the pane and took the note from the owl's leg. It said, "I will send a driver for you at 8 sharp. D."

She smiled, and then she frowned. Why couldn't she apparate? Perhaps since Draco was merely a visitor at Carrington House, the wards were not set for his guests. They might not even be set for him.

She looked at her watch. It was after 5 o'clock. She should go get dressed. She ran down the stairs, took a hot shower, and picked out her prettiest dress. She slipped it on her body, loving the feel of the silk against her skin. It was a deep plum colour, sleeveless, and flirty and fun. She twirled once, still looking forward to her date, and then she went to put on her earrings.

She placed one diamond stud in her ear, but then dropped the back. She cursed and got down on her hands and knees to find the blasted thing. She saw it bounce once, but didn't see it after that. She picked up the bedspread, and looked under the bed. There was a shallow trunk under the bed. Luna had cleaned in here, but never told her about a trunk. She pulled it out, opened it immediately, and inside were three paintings. One was a very small landscape of the sea. The second was of comparable size, apparently to be hung with the first, and it was of her cottage. The last one, wrapped with linen and twine, was a mystery.

She lifted it out of the trunk and unwrapped it. It was a portrait of a beautiful woman with dark red hair, almost burgundy. Hermione knew in her heart it had to be Mr. Weasley's aunt. Was the woman his aunt or great aunt? Suddenly, Hermione wasn't sure, because the picture looked very old. She saw an envelope secured to the paper covering the back of the canvas, since the painting was not in a frame. She opened the envelope, and inside was a letter, written in the same hand as the letters upstairs, and once again, it said, "To my lovely wife, Miriam. I will love you forever. Love, Otto."

Was that her name? Hermione had never known. How similar to Miranda. Odd. She placed the portrait over the mantle, and flanked it with the two smaller pictures. She would hang them all tomorrow. A knock on her door surprised her. It was only 7 o'clock, so it couldn't be the driver to take her to Carrington House.

She opened the door to find it was still raining, and a very wet looking man, of about her age, sandy hair and blue eyes, was standing on her threshold, shaking the rain out of his hair.

"Miss Granger?"

"Yes," she said.

"I know I'm early. Oh, sorry. I'm Phillip Cranston, manager of the Carrington estates. Draco was going to send a driver for you at 8 o'clock, but there's been a slight change in plans. May I come in and explain?"

"Of course," Hermione said. She moved aside and let the man in. "Can I get you anything?" she asked. What she wanted to ask was, "Is Draco canceling our date?" but she didn't.

Phillip stayed in the foyer and said, "Draco's parents showed up, quite unannounced, mind you. So for all intents and purposes, Draco would like you to still come tonight, but pretend to be my date, and then when his parents retire, he will claim you as his date once more." He smiled, and acted as if it was the most common of request.

"Pretend to be your date?" she asked. She was confused, not because she didn't understand what he was proposing, but because he WAS proposing it. Apparently, Draco didn't want his parents to know they were seeing each other. In her opinion, that was one mark against him. She said, "I'll just stay here, and when his parents leave, he can come up here to the cottage." That settled that, at least in her mind.

"They're staying the night," Phillip explained.

"Well, when they go back into town, to stay at their hotel, he can visit me. I don't want to go around pretending to be someone else's date, no offense to you," she clarified.

Phillip realized that Draco hadn't told her that he owned the place yet. Not wanting to reveal the other man's secrets, he was quiet for a moment, but then he said, "They're staying at Carrington House as well."

"Isn't that awkward? Don't your employers mind you having so many people stay?"

"Miss Granger, Draco owns the place. I work for him," Phillips said slowly. He could have easily lied, and he certainly wasn't above doing such a thing, but when lying wasn't for his benefit, he saw no reason to do it.

She knew she must look like a fish out of water. She was aware she was staring, opened mouth, at the man. Draco hadn't told her that. He lied. That was definitely going to be a second mark against him. Then she thought of that first day, the day of the tour, and how she told him the tour was boring, the house stuffy and oh yes, she broke the head off a statue!

She said, "Tell Mr. Malfoy that I'm not hungry, and I really won't need to see him the rest of my stay here."

"Miss Granger," he started, though he didn't know what he was going to say.

She ushered him to the door, and said, "I'm not hungry, nor do I require company, and I especially won't be lying to his parents and telling them that I'm your date. Thank you." She shut the door on his blank expression, and then she sat at her kitchen table, and debated on whether or not she had enough feelings for the man to be properly sad, or was she merely angry. It didn't matter, for tears came anyway, and whether they were tears of pain, or tears of righteous indignation, it didn't matter.

She knew someone like him could break her heart. She thought she might have even been falling in love with him. She hated the fact that once again a man had lied to her. Was he even really divorced? Did he even have a son? She didn't know what to believe. She ate a quick sandwich, kept on her pretty dress, and walked down the sloped side of the cottage, careful not to slip, down to the sea below. She needed time to think and reflect. She needed time to convince herself that it was all for the best, and to remind herself that she hadn't come here to fall in love anyway. She was on a journey of self-discovery, not self-loathing, and damn that Draco Malfoy anyway.

It was just Draco. Draco Malfoy. He wasn't anything so special! He hadn't even broken her heart after all. She was fine.

She didn't know how long she had been walking along the beach, but she knew it was long enough for twilight to come and go, and for it to be replaced with a bright moon and a splattering of stars in the sky. It was just like the night Miranda was admiring. Thinking about her story, she decided she had wallowed in self-pity long enough, and that it was time to go back inside and write some more.

That was when she saw Draco Malfoy running toward her. She didn't want to face him, but she would give him the benefit of the doubt. She would let him explain himself, and his reasons for lying. He ran up to her and pulled her into his arms, and said, "I was so worried! I thought something happened to you."

She was confused. She pushed him away and said, "I didn't feel like being an unwanted guest at your family reunion. Didn't your friend Phillip tell you that I wasn't coming?"

"No, no one told me anything. I sent Phillip to pick you up hours ago, and when he didn't return, I made my excuses to my parents and I finally came up here to see where you were, and when I saw the state of the cottage, I was even more worried!"

"What are you going on about now?" she asked. She was as confused as he was, and didn't have time to question him about his lies, because he grabbed her hand and disapparated with her on the spot. They arrived right outside the front door, which was off its hinges and on the ground, just as it was the first day she arrived.

She walked in before Draco and saw that the whole place had been trashed. She immediately ran upstairs to look for her story. She already had one hundred and fifty-five pages written, and if something happened to them, she was certain she wouldn't be able to reproduce them.

What she saw when she reached the top of the stairs made her sad and angry at the same time.

Not only was her story burnt beyond recognition, but also the letters, which were on her desk earlier that day, were missing. Draco was standing behind her. He held out his arms, to comfort her, but she pushed past him and ran downstairs, and he ran right behind her.

She stood in her bedroom and sighed. The paintings were gone as well.

(Coming up: Truth and More Omissions)


	9. 9 Truth and More Omissions

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 9: Truth and more Omissions:**

Walking around in circles, Hermione said more to herself than to him, "Who would have done this? How did they even get in?"

Draco took her by the shoulders and pointed her back toward the main room. He picked up one of the kitchen chairs, which had been knocked over, and said, "Sit down a moment." She did without argument. "Didn't you mention that there was an extra key above the front door, in the little hole?"

"Yes, that's what Ginny told me, but if you remember correctly, my hand got stuck in there, and I didn't feel a key while I was stuck," she said in rather harsh tones.

He didn't like her tone, and he spat back, "Did you lock the door with a key or magic?"

"Why does that matter?" she asked, bending over to pick up parts of her burnt story from the floor.

"Because it would be nice to know whether this was done by a Muggle or a Wizard," he answered.

"This is a magical community!" she practically shouted. "I hardly think it was a Muggle!"

"Then you locked it with magic? Is that what you are so ineloquently trying to say?" he asked.

"YES! I LOCKED IT WITH MAGIC! I'm not an idiot!"

"Listen, don't take out your anger on me," he said. "I didn't do any thing."

"You did something, just not this," she mumbled.

"What?" he asked for clarification.

She wanted to say, "You lied to me! You sent another man to pick me up and pretend to be my date! You made me fall for you!" Instead of saying any of those things, or even answering his question, she said, "Well, my story is ruined and the letters are gone. Why would anyone care about my story?"

"Maybe taken together with the letters, they thought you were writing a piece of non-fiction, instead of fiction. Maybe there was something in those letters, and even in your story, that someone didn't want known," he said. "Although if the person read the story, they would know it was just a piece of romantic fluff."

She turned on him, pointed toward the open doorway, since the door was still lying on the ground, and said, "Kindly leave! I know it wasn't a great work of literature, but it was mine, okay? I cared about it, and it's ruined, and that hurts a bit. I'm sorry you are too dense and shallow to understand!"

Before he could give her grief for saying he was dense and shallow, she added, "I can't believe they took the paintings, too. This just couldn't get any worse."

He set another chair up and sat beside her, "What paintings?"

"I found three paintings, in a small trunk under the bed. One of the seashore, one of this cottage, and one of a beautiful, ginger-haired woman, with a note attached to the back that said, "To my beloved wife Miriam, from your husband, Otto." I assumed it was a portrait of Mr. Weasley's aunt," she stated.

Draco stood up and asked, "Did you say Miriam?"

"Yes, why?"

"And Otto?"

"Yes, the same name that was on the letters. You saw a couple of them. Why?" she asked again, standing up beside him.

He said, "I have to go. Will you be all right? Can you straighten this out yourself?" He didn't even wait for a response. He left.

She was more confused than ever. She didn't get to question him about why he lied about owning Carrington House, or why he was ashamed to let his parents know they were dating.

Were they dating?

Apparently not, because surely a boyfriend wouldn't run away and leave a girlfriend right after her cottage was trashed, her story ruined, and the inspiration for the story, old love letters, stolen. She started to pick up the cottage, not bothering with magic. It was cathartic to do it on her own.

It was well after 3 am before she had the entire placed cleaned and picked up. She tried to savage a few pages of her story, but for the most part, it was destroyed beyond recognition.

She saw no reason to stay at the cottage. She couldn't start her story over again. She just couldn't. If she was smart, and at home, she would have written on her computer, but something about being here, in this ancient magical community, and in this cottage by the sea, made her want to write it with longhand on parchment, perhaps the way Miriam would have written it if she was still alive.

She was more disturbed about the letters than her story. They were love letters, and they had apparently been important to Miriam, because they were hidden. She was put out about the paintings, because she hadn't even had time to examine them. However, more than anything else, she was livid at Draco Malfoy because he lied to her, in the same way that Mark had lied to her. It might not have been about marriage, but she wasn't going to stick around to find out how far Draco's lies had gone.

She was going to leave at first light.

She took a lightweight shawl and went out to a wooden deck chair on the back porch. She still had on her pretty dress, although it was slightly worse for wear. She placed her feet under her body, rested her head on the back, and closed her eyes.

She was anxious when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes, and saw that the morning sun was long up in the sky. She placed her feet on the floor, threw the shawl off her shoulders and asked, "What time is it?"

Draco was standing there, his hand still on her shoulder, and he said, "After nine."

"Oh no, I wanted to leave early," she said, standing.

He pushed her back in the chair. "You aren't leaving."

"Excuse me, Malfoy," she said with ire. She stood back up and he pushed her back down. She said, "Touch me again, and you will be sorry."

He closed one eye slightly and said, "Where's your wand?"

"In the bedroom," she said.

"Then I think I can probably take you in a fight, so stay in the chair, please." He went over to the little wooden table at the other side of the porch, and scooted a chair toward her, the wooden legs scrapping the worn floorboards. He put the chair directly in front of hers, sat down, and took her hands.

"I want to tell you a few things," he said.

"Okay," she said.

"First, I'm fairly certain I love you," he said.

She frowned. "Draco, we've spent a week together. You aren't in love with me," she said. Just because she was in love with him after a week, didn't mean he was in love with her. As soon she thought it, she felt slightly dizzy. Did she really love him?

He kissed her hands, which he still had in his, and he said, "I haven't loved a lot of people in my life. I love my parents. I loved my grandparents. I love my son. I love you."

"But your wife?" she started.

He interrupted her before she could complete that thought. "Didn't love her. Not in the least. She tricked me into marriage. We dated for a few months, she claimed she was pregnant, she bribed a Healer to fake results for her, my parents forced me to marry her, I did, but I didn't love her," he answered sharply.

"You didn't love the mother of your son?" she asked.

"I met her by accident. I was in a miserable marriage. I was unhappy. I wanted to go somewhere where no one would know me, so I had to go somewhere where there weren't any Wizards. I went to Paris for a few months. I met an American Model. She didn't know who or what I was. It was perfect. It was just sex. We spent one week together, and that was all. There were no declarations of love by either of us. Then she became pregnant. My wife found out, well, because I told her. I hoped it would be enough of a reason for her to leave me. It wasn't." Draco let go of Hermione's hands and stood up. He leaned against the porch railing and said, "My wife had to be bought off so I could leave her."

"But you wanted to divorce her because of your child?" she asked, still feeling a step behind. She didn't understand.

"I wanted to divorce her because I couldn't stand the sight of her," he said bluntly. "Now I'm involved in the whole custody battle thing. My son's mother is living in London now, and she wants to marry this bloke, and have him raise my son. He's my son, my heir, and I cannot let another man raise him or give him a different name. There came a time when I was forced to finally tell her what I was, and that made her more resolved that I should never see my son again."

"When I finally convinced her that my son will probably be like me someday, she became scared and ran away. I tracked her down, and now we're in the middle of the biggest battle of my life."

"I'm so sorry, Draco," she said.

"Listen, I don't want your pity," he said, pushing aside the chair he was in, grabbing her hands, and pulling her up to stand in front of him. "I'm telling you this because I don't want you to think I'm some lying sack of shite like your ex-boyfriend. I'm not. I didn't set out to lie to you about anything. I didn't lie about my divorce or my son. I just hadn't told you yet."

"I did lie about Carrington House, but at first that was just because it was so funny that day you told me how terrible the tour was, and how the house was boring, and you broke my great-grandfather's statue." He started to laugh. "Well, I couldn't tell you at that point, and later when I found out you were staying here, I thought if I told you, you might leave and I didn't want you to do that."

"Why would you think I would leave?" she asked, before she gasped and said, "That statue looked familiar to me! It looked like you."

"See, you're smart," he said. "Slow, but smart."

"Forget my ineptness and tell me why you think I would have left the cottage if I knew you owned Carrington House. I know you're made of money. I wouldn't have cared," she said.

"Would you have stayed here if you knew I owned this cottage, too?"

"You don't own it," she said. "Mr. Weasley does."

"No, he doesn't. My family still does, and he knows that. I didn't want to tell you that, because you really seemed to need to be here. I wanted to help you. I wanted to help myself. I wanted you close by. You see, Mr. Weasley has permission to use it, for the rest of his life, from a binding magical contract signed by my grandfather's brother, Otto, to Mr. Weasley's Aunt Miriam."

"Miriam and Otto," she said, just realizing.

He nodded and took a small locket out of his pants pocket. "This was hers." He opened it and there were two portraits. He pointed to the man and said, "My grandfather's older brother, Otto, and Mr. Weasley's aunt, Miriam. Is this the woman from the portrait?" He handed it to her.

She nodded, since the portrait was an exact miniature of the one she found. She looked at the pictures for a long time, until he took the locket from her. He reached up and stroked her cheek.

"They were married?" she asked.

"I don't know that they were, but maybe there were," he said. "The letters don't prove anything, just because he called her his wife, but maybe they were and they hid it from everyone," Draco said, closing the locket and putting it back in his pants. "Who knows, the letters might have shed some light on that matter, but now they're gone."

"Why would they hide it?" she asked.

"Because even though she was pureblood, much like your Miranda, she was poor, had nothing in her name, no money, no relations. He was from one of the oldest, proudest, richest, pureblood families in England. He was the eldest son, and expected to marry well, and present a proper wife to society, and to have proper heirs. We always assumed he never married, and he died fairly young. My grandfather became Lord of the Manor, my father his only heir, with me his only living heir."

"And your son your only heir," she said softly.

He nodded. "It's important that I don't lose him."

"For more reasons than that," she said as a statement of fact. He nodded, placed his hand behind her neck, and pulled her closer to him.

"Now what?" he asked. He brushed his nose along her jaw. He kissed her behind her ear. "Do you forgive me? I would have told my parents about us." He looked her deep in the eyes. "I just wasn't expecting them, and they caught me off guard. I'm sorry. Do you forgive me?"

"Yes. I mean, what's not to forgive," she said.

"And do you love me?" he asked. He kissed her right cheek, and then moved his cheek next to hers, his face skimming hers until his mouth was on her left cheek, and he kissed that as well.

"I do," she said.

"Show me, Hermione," he said. "Show me that you love me."

_Coming up: Three Love Scenes and a cottage_


	10. 10 Three Love Scenes and a Cottage

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 10: Three Love Scenes and a Cottage:**

Draco was backing Hermione into the bedroom of the little cottage with a lopsided grin on his face. He said, "I really want you to show me how much you love me."

"Maybe I want you to show me how much you love me," she said.

"Oh, I'll show you alright, Granger."

"All talk and no action makes Draco a very dull boy," she said.

"Dull? I've been called lots of things," he said, taking her hand and bringing it up to his face. He kissed the inside of her wrist. "But dull was never one of them." He dropped her wrist and started to kiss her neck. Her hands came up to his neck. His mouth moved toward hers and he said, "We'll see if your assessment is the same in about an hour."

"An hour?" she asked.

"I like to take my time," he grinned. He stood and looked at her and he said, "Do you know how much I want you? Do you know how long I've dreamt of this? Granger, you are so beautiful and so ripe for the picking that my mouth is watering with desire and anticipation."

She suddenly blushed. He reached over and stroked her cheek. He wanted to ask her if she wanted him too, but he could tell that she did. Still, it would be nice to hear it out loud. As if reading his mind, she said, "I want you so much, too, Draco."

Music to his ears.

Warmth seemed to pass from his silver-grey eyes to her brown ones, and the same warmth spread throughout her body, making her tingle with a true wanton desire. A want and excitement radiated from her head to her toes. She closed her eyes and he pulled her closer to him as his lips slipped back to cover hers. At first, the kiss was light, gentle, easy and sweet. It soon turned ravishing and passionate, as a groan escaped his mouth and went through to hers.

He found her neck appealing. He really did. He licked her neck slowly, and then placed her earlobe in his teeth and tugged lightly. He wanted to take things slowly, do things right, and have her remember this moment for the rest of her life. He wanted it to be that memorable.

His hands went to lower the zipper of her dress, and as it slipped off her shoulders, he caressed her arms, dragging the material down with his touch. The dress pooled at her feet. Her stomach tightened and contracted as he put one finger on her stomach, and moved his body around hers, his finger travel the circle with him, not once losing contact with her skin. She even had to raise her arms. When he found himself back at the beginning, he lowered his arm and stared at her for a long time.

His hands went to her shoulders and slid her bra straps down lightly. He traced the V at the swell of her breasts, touching only the lace of the bra. He reached around her with both hands, and with the aptitude of a true master, he unclasped her bra quickly and effortlessly, and pulled it down her arms. He threw it on the floor and watched her heaving breasts. He swallowed hard, and for the first time in his life, he felt slightly at a loss of what to do next. Seriously, he knew what he wanted to do, but he wasn't sure how to proceed. He wanted to stare at her, kiss her, touch her, all at the same time, and wasn't sure which to do first.

She was beginning to feel uncomfortable with his staring, so she raised her arms to cover her breasts. He grabbed both her wrist and said, "No. You are far too beautiful even to consider covering yourself. I won't allow it."

Her embarrassment evaporated as he leaned forward to kiss her again, one hand coming to rest on one breast, the other hand flat on her back. His tongue lined her lips, and then trailed down to her collarbone, then to her breasts. She arched against him, and he kissed the rosy peak of one breast and thought, 'Perfection.'

He stood back upright and noticed that her shaking hands were trying to unbutton his shirt. She was nervous. If she only knew that he was as well, then all her nerves would probably evaporate. She continued unbuttoning his shirt, he started to pull down her pretty little knickers. He pulled them all the way down, his shirt open but still on his shoulders. She stepped out of them and on his way back to standing, he said, "I thought so."

She stood in totally glory and said, "You thought what?"

"I thought you would be perfect."

Hermione reached forward and pulled him closer by his belt loop. She unfastened his pants, her hands no longer shaking. He seemed amused at first, but then he felt more desire than he had ever felt, so he began to enjoy her undressing him.

When they were both devoid of clothing, they stood to admire each other for a moment, and then at the exact same time they laughed, which made them laugh again. He said, "You better be laughing with me, and not at me."

"Would it hurt your pride if I was laughing at you?"

"No, but my manhood might take it the wrong way," he said.

"I just can't believe this is really about to happen. Can you believe it?" she asked.

He stepped closer and said, "I want to say something witty and contrite here, but honestly, I can't believe it either."

He knelt in front of her, to worship her fully. His hands went to her hips and he kissed her bare stomach. She grasped his shoulders tightly, and threw her head back. His hands move up her hips to her waist and when her head went back, her hair skimmed his fingers. He loved her long curly hair. He always did.

He urged her to sit on the bed. He stayed on his knees and while on his knees, he crawled over toward her. He slid his tongue around one nipple, and when it was thoroughly erect, he did the same with the other. Her arms were behind her, to hold her weight, but they began to spasm and she fell backwards. He urged her legs open and with his hands on her hips, he pulled her closer to him.

He ran one hand down her leg, from her hip, to her knee, to her foot, and then back up the inside, his thumb grazing the back of her leg. When he reached the top of her thigh she tried to clench her legs, but his body was in the way. He bent his head and let his lips follow the same path his hand just took, only on the other leg. Again, when he reached the upper, inner thigh, she flinched, and he hesitated. He placed both of his hands on her stomach, and he kissed along her pelvic bone, down between her legs, and beyond.

The thing he was doing to her was leaving her raw and bare and a bundle of exposed nerves. She felt like she was reduced to a mass of jelly, and she began to wail, which sounded foreign to her own ears, since she was usually quiet and tame during sex. It was different with Draco. She felt she could finally be herself, and appreciate the offerings he was giving her. A wave of pleasure like no other crashed down on her and she yelled out, "I can't take this," and he looked up at her alarmed for a moment, until she placed her hand on his head and said, "Don't stop."

He would have laughed, but he was too busy. He placed one of her legs over his shoulder, and continued his pursuits until she was a quivering, boneless heap on the bed.

He moved her so she was up on the bed properly and he said, "Well, I would say you showed me how much you loved me."

She wasn't sure she could talk but she said, "I rather think you showed me." She wasn't sure she could move to show him anything. The pleasure she just endured was still echoing in every crevice of her being, and she felt excruciatingly exalted to the highest power. She thought about reciprocating when she felt his hands begin to caress her glistening skin once more. He leaned over and kissed her lips and he entered her with one finger.

He kissed down to her breasts, marveling at the quality of them. They were the most beautiful, full breasts he had ever encountered and he suddenly knew that he never wanted to see any other, nor did he want anyone else to see hers, and that thought caused a few warning bells to go off in his head, but not enough to cause him to stop his quest.

He brought his mouth back up to hers, her vigor began to return, and so she kissed him with equality and a shared eagerness, which he wasn't sure he had met before. He shifted so he was over her body, and then slowly, as if he were moving in slow motion, he entered her. He held his weight off her with his forearms, and he tried to watch her expression, but she was so inviting, and the feeling was so different from what he expected, that a pulsation reverberated through him to her and he had to shut his eyes, because he felt as if he was on sensory overload.

Her hands clenched his shoulders as he continued the up and down motion, the motion both sharp and light at the same time. When he felt she was on the edge again, or when he felt on the cusp himself, he would stop or slow down. He did this three times. Finally, he felt her frustration, and though he never wanted their lovemaking to end, he knew he would have more chances with her, so he quickened his strokes, and soon the waves came again and they crested, and the pair climaxed at exactly the same time.

He let out one more groan and dropped a dead weight on her body, then said, "Pardon," and he rolled off her.

"Pardon?" she repeated, with a slight laugh.

"I'm nothing if I'm not polite." He propped himself up on his side and he said, "What are we going to do now?"

"In what sense?" she asked, her hand coming up to stroke his face.

"Well, you do realize that you are mine now, right? I just claimed you, and you are mine, plain and simple." He was only half-joking. The other half was dead serious, and that thought even scared him. For goodness sakes, he was fresh from a divorce, in the middle of a custody battle. He had neither the time, patience, nor inclination for another relationship, but damn it all to hell, the heart wanted what the heart wanted. In other words, Draco Malfoy always got what he wanted.

She pondered his words for a second. She wasn't ready for a complicated relationship, and Draco's life seemed complicated right now. She was supposed to be up here to get her head straight, write a novel, maybe read a bit, sunbathe, swim in the ocean, and mend a broken heart. She wasn't up here for romance, and she certainly wasn't up here for anything more.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and decided she owed it to them both to tell him that very thing up front. She looked into his eyes and he said, "Well?"

"I claim you too, Draco." That wasn't what she meant to say, but that was what came out.

They spent the whole day in bed. They made love so many times she lost count. They ate lunch in bed, and then dinner, too. They both bathed and then made love in the shower. Hermione changed the sheets while Draco went to get some wine from the kitchen. He walked back into the bedroom as she excused herself to go to the bathroom. When she walked back into the bedroom, he was sound asleep. It was seven o'clock in the evening, the sky was pink, the horizon endless, and Hermione Granger was restless. Besides, he looked too peaceful to wake up.

She dressed in a cotton dress and nothing else. She grabbed some parchment and a Muggle pen and decided to rewrite her story from the beginning. Draco had inspired her. She went outside, and as the sun began to set in the sky, she started to write.

She wrote from memory. She rewrote the whole first chapter, and part of the second in three hours. She decided to write a love scene that wasn't in the first story. She would add it to a later chapter, but she wanted to write it now. She got the idea from one of the letters that the intruder didn't find. They didn't find it because Hermione had it on her person at the time, in her pocket. It wasn't one of the letters she found under the floorboard. She had found this one hidden under the drawer of the desk upstairs. She had already read it once. In this letter, the man didn't call the woman his wife. He called her 'his future wife'. She didn't know if this was important or not, but she had wanted to share it with Draco during their date. The date that never happened.

Hermione opened the letter and read. It was a very steamy, passionate letter.

* * *

**My dearest, future wife,**

**Will you ever forgive me? I know I have disappointed you, and I will no doubt continue to do so. I did not forget about our plans to meet tonight. I was unable to do so, and the reason is not important, although the reason is simple: my parents came tonight. What is important is that you tell me you will forgive me.**

**All night long, while I sat with my parents and my brother, listening to them drone on and on about my duty, my place, my position, I dreamt of last night. The night we spent together. The night we finally consummated our union. Remember, no one can ever take that from us. It is ours and ours alone.**

**I know I goaded you into giving me your virginity, but I do not regret a thing. I will not regret it, ever. You are too good for me. You are too good to me. The thing was, just the thought that someone else might take you to their bed and make you theirs before I had the chance made me throw all sanity aside. I knew I had to touch you, taste you, taste the sweetness of your mouth, and the sweetness between your thighs.**

**The mounds of your breasts called out for me, and left my mouth watering for more. I don't only want you in my bed at night, but I want to gaze upon your face every morning. Give me time, my love. I will make it happen, I promise.**

**When my mouth finally tasted yours, after so many months of teasing, small kisses, I knew I was beyond all reason. When my tongue slid in your mouth, I knew the results would be shattering. We played with fire for far too long, and I knew we would eventually go up in flames.**

**With you lying naked in my arms, on the sand, near your little cottage, I knew happiness for the first time in my life. The fullness of your breasts under my hands, and the feel of your skin against my lips are feelings I will never forget. I relish the sweet memory.**

**You were more lovely than I thought possible. Smooth, ivory skin, a gentle swell of breasts, an erotic sight to say the least. When I first reached out with my lips to capture one of the small, erect buds, and you cried out my name, was the happiest moment of my life.**

**When I urged your legs apart with my knee, I saw the fear in your eyes and it broke my heart, but as soon as I kissed you again, and again, and again, and I felt your warm heat growing, and I heard you murmur my name, I knew everything would be alright.**

**The pinnacle, the crowning moment, was when I entered you, your innocence shattered, but you didn't even cry out. You kissed me. You kissed me and in that one kiss, I knew I would never ever let you go.**

**So now, you are mine. Totally, completely mine. Perhaps not legally, perhaps only in our hearts, but stay true to me, my love. Trust me. I will make you my legal wife as soon as I can.**

**Love, your husband in my heart, Otto.**

* * *

Hermione folded the letter and placed it back in the pocket of her dress. Little did she know that this one letter, the letter that was not found, was the one that would have proved to be the most important. It was the one that was most needed by the person who broke into her cottage earlier, because it proved many things, and the person didn't even know it existed.

Hermione thought about her lovemaking to Draco, and then about Otto and Miriam, and she said, "It's time Miranda and Waring."

She put pen to paper, and she wrote:

* * *

"_Miranda, is that you?" Waring asked, looking toward a woman lying on the beach. She sat up, her long auburn hair hanging down her back, her robe coming off her shoulders, and the moonlight dancing upon her ivory skin. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. His heart was engorged with love for this girl, which he barely knew. He was a station above her, and he would not ruin her, but by all that was holy, he never wanted a woman as much as the woman that was before him._

"_Hello, my lord. I am star gazing." She acted as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He came to sit beside her. She looked over at his casual attire. His waistcoat was unbutton, his cravat untied, he was without coat, gloves or hat. She said, "And what are you doing out so late, my lord."_

"_I had an argument with my cousin, his Grace." He rolled his eyes. She stifled a smile. _

"_And what did his Grace do to warrant your wrath this time?" she said._

_He looked at her and he said, "Actually, we were arguing about you."_

"_Me, my lord? Why?" She seemed alarmed._

"_He wants you out of this cottage, you know," he said. "He said that when your Aunt died, the place went back into his holdings, and that you are but a squatter here. He said she had no place to leave it to you in her will."_

"_So I am to go, then?" she asked._

_He smiled and said, "Not yet. There might be a little secret that Parrish will not be happy if it is discovered. Believe me, I think you are safe."_

"_You are my benefactor, I presume?" she asked._

"_Perhaps." He smiled again and then laughed and said, "You owe me, my dear. I think a kiss will do nicely."_

_She seemed suddenly alarmed. Waring saw the look in her eyes and said, "Don't worry; I was only playing a prank. You owe me nothing but a smile." He reached out and stroked her cheek. He knew in that instant that he loved her. He loved her with his heart, soul, and mind. He loved her enough to give up his claim to the Dukedom, and to allow his cousin to continue with the charade. He loved her._

_He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. He said, "May I have that smile now?"_

"_You may have the kiss you originally requested," she said bashfully. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. _

_He smiled back at her and said, "May I have another?"_

"_Why?" she asked._

"_Why not?" he asked back. Then he said her name. "Miranda." He wanted her. Here in the sand, in the middle of the night, he wanted her. He suddenly turned serious and he said, "You must go now, or I shall not be responsible."_

"_My lord?" she said._

"_Go, Miranda, go now," he said. He turned his face toward the horizon. He felt her hand upon his shoulder. He closed his eyes. She did not leave, so now, he would not be responsible._

_Then she said, "No one is here, Waring. No one will know." He turned to her, and then he leaned down and kissed her lips and it was all that he expected it to be. She almost stopped breathing as his lips slid against hers. She had never kissed a man, not like this. It was new and foreign and she liked it very much, and when his tongue slid between her lips, and danced with hers, she thought she might faint._

_She loved him. Plain and simple. She threw her arms around him and he lowered her to the ground. She was not sure if she was doing things correctly, but she knew he kept repeating her name, so he must like it as much as she did._

_He reached down for her shift, having already opened her robe. His whole body pressed against hers, pressing her hard into the soft sand below. Something in his urgent kissing softened, and he said, "I want to cherish every second of this moment." Before she knew it, she was completely naked, lying on her robe, and the man she loved was ravishing every part of her body with his tongue, his eyes, his touch, and his heart. She moaned and said, "Please."_

_He straddled her body, his lips on her throat. She was aware that he had removed his boots and breeches, and he was as bare as she, and when he came to rest between her legs she did what felt natural and she arched against him, and when he entered her, she thought it would hurt, and she did cry, but they were tears of joy._

_He stopped for a moment, thinking he had hurt her, but when she grasped his back harder and said please again, he continued. He kissed her, more like devoured her, and as pure unbridled emotion overtook them both, she screamed out into the night, and he joined her and bit back his own cry. _

_They lay together, her robe over them both, their heads on his pile of clothing and he said, "I have ruined you." She looked up into his eyes, but she saw amusement there._

"_You do not seem to regret my being ruined, my lord."_

"_Oh, goodness, Miranda, I love you too much to regret it."_

* * *

Hermione was about to write the next line when she saw something out of the corner of her eye, near the Carrington estates, where the estate line met the beach. Someone had lit a bonfire. Hermione suddenly had an uneasy feeling. She knew in her heart that whatever was being burnt down there had something to do with what was taken from her cottage.

She put her new pages under a chair cushion and went to wake Draco. She leaned over him and said, "Wake up, please."

He awoke immediately, smiled at her, but then just as quickly he saw urgency in her eyes. He sat up and asked, "What's wrong?"

_Coming up: A Flashback and a Fire_

_(A/N: Three love scenes for the price of one!)_


	11. 11 A Flashback and a Fire

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 11: A Flashback and a Fire:**

_Flashback:_

_Draco wondered why he even came to this stupid picnic. What was the point? His life would soon be over. He would marry Claire, and then he would spend the rest of his days unhappy. He knew he would. He doubted she was even pregnant. Stupid bint. He turned to look at Hermione Granger. She was sitting on the ground, on a blanket, and she was finally alone. He was waiting for her to be alone again. Someone was constantly around her._

_He walked up to her, his loaded plate balanced in one hand, a glass of ale in the other, and he said, "May I share your blanket?"_

_She stood up and took his glass. She said, "Have a seat." He sat down and once situated, she handed his glass back to him before she sat down. She took a bite of chicken and said, "Why do you look so glum today? I've had a nagging feeling all day that you've seemed unhappy. The only time you looked remotely like the old Draco was when you stole my iced tea." _

_He laughed and said, "Stealing and the old Draco go hand in hand." He took a bite of his potatoes. "Are you seeing anyone, Granger?"_

"_No, I'm totally free," she said._

"_Free?" he asked back. "You mean I could get you for no money down?"_

"_So droll," she said sarcastically. "How about you? Theo mentioned something to Ginny Weasley about you seeing someone."  
_

_Theo knew about Claire, but he was the only one. Even though he was set to marry her sooner than he would have wanted (since he didn't want to marry her at all), he should probably tell Granger that he was at least seeing someone. "No, I'm free, too." He felt slightly guilty lying to her, but only slightly._

_She nodded. He thought she blushed a bit, but the sun was rather bright. Hermione dropped a piece of potatoes on her chest, above the heart-shaped neckline of her little white sundress with cherries. She looked down, picked up her napkin, but before she could wipe it away, he reached over and picked it up with his fingers._

_Then they both just stared at each other for several long embarrassing moments. Then he smiled. Then she smiled. Then he laughed. Then she laughed. Then he popped the piece of potatoes in his mouth, and they laughed some more._

_Lord, why couldn't he have gotten someone like Hermione Granger pregnant, instead of Claire? He wouldn't mind having to marry her._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Draco woke up and realized he was in Hermione Granger's bed. They had really spent the night together. Well, the day, rather. The point being, they made love, many, many times and it was everything he had thought it might be.

In other words, it was glorious.

He remembered that blasted picnic again, and how they shared a blanket while they ate, and again at night during the fireworks. He had imagined those moments so many times, in so many ways over the years. He imagined rolling over on the blanket, pulling her down on top of him, and kissing her senseless.

Now it was no longer just a sick perverted dream. It was real. She was real. She was his. He opened his eyes and reach out for her. The room was dark. She wasn't there. He heard the back door screen slam shut, and he shut his eyes, so she would think he was asleep. As soon as she got back in bed, he would pounce.

"Wake up, please," Hermione said, shaking his shoulders.

Draco opened his eyes immediately, smiled at her, but then just as quickly he saw urgency in her eyes. He sat up and asked, "What's wrong?"

"There's a fire on the beach. I have a sick feeling it might be the letters. I don't know why I think that, but I do." Without waiting for a response from him, she pulled on shoes and ran out the door. He dressed as quickly as he could, and ran out to look for her. She had already apparated to the beach. He followed right behind.

When she reached the beach the fire was growing steadier, and she saw a wizard disapparate away. She ran up to the planks and boards, which were propped together to form a means for the fire, and she saw the larger painting, burning. She reached for it, with no regard to being burnt. Draco pulled her by the waist, but not before she singed her fingers.

She cried out in pain, and when Draco went to administer to her burn, she pointed toward the bonfire and said, "Save the painting."

"No, it's gone," he said.

"Draco!" she said harshly. She ran around him, holding her right hand in her left and saw what remained of the letters curling up in the glowing embers as well. "The letters are in there, too!"

Draco walked around the fire. He could easier put it out with a simple spell, yet he watched everything burn ,and when he came back around toward Hermione, who was standing too close to the fire in his opinion, he pulled her back. He cupped her burnt hand in both of his. It was red and had two blisters already formed. He drew his wand from his pocket, and without invitation, healed her hand.

"Who would do this?" she asked with her hand still in his.

"That's a good question," he said. "You do realize that a witch or wizard wouldn't have needed to burn these things in the middle of the night. They could have easily gotten rid of them with a flick of their wand."

She nodded in understanding. "But I'm fairly certain I saw a wizard or witch disapparate away when I arrived. Maybe it was a wizard, and they burned the items this way for effect. Maybe they wanted us to find them, and to know that they were destroyed, or maybe they wanted someone else to know that they were destroyed."

Draco wasn't as convinced. "I have to ask you again," Draco said, "did you lock the cottage the other night with magic or a key?"

"Neither."

"I thought so," he said back.

"I just went for a walk. I thought I would be back." She bent her head to rest on his shoulder. He rubbed her back and he felt apprehension for her, and he wasn't completely sure why.

"You should come back and stay at Carrington House," he said. Then his eyes grew wide and he said, "DAMN!" He pulled away from her. "My parents are still there! I left this morning telling them I had business in London. They probably saw the bonfire from the house." He put her hand up to his mouth and said, "I have to go. I'll apparate you back to the cottage."

"To pack?" she asked.

He looked confused and then said, "I forgot about my parents. I can't have you stay there while my parents are there. Just make sure you put up protection wards all around the cottage."

"Wait a minute," she said, pulling away from him. "You're ashamed to let your parents know about me!"

"I just haven't told them yet," he answered. She thought that sounded like a feeble excuse.

"Go tell them and then I'll pack a bag and be there by morning," she said. She was bluffing. She didn't want to go there even if his parents weren't there.

"I can't do that," he said. He deplored her to understand with his gaze, and a brush of his hand down her face.

"Get out of my sight," she said, pointing in the direction of the estate.

He frowned and said, "This is my property."

"Stupid, lying, idiot!" she shouted.

"Oh you are so eloquent at times," he harked.

She stormed off in the direction of the cottage. He watched her go. He had to let her go, even though he loved her. There were some things more important in his life right now, and one of those things was his son.

His son and his son's mother were invited to stay at the estate by his parents. They were set to arrive in the morning. Draco walked back to Carrington House to clear his thoughts. He loved Hermione, but she would still be there later. His son may not be. In an effort to settle this thing out of the courts, especially the Muggle courts, his mother and father contacted the mother of his son and invited her here this weekend. They wanted to bribe her, but of course. They wanted to show her what would be her son's someday. They wanted her to see that she would never want for anything the rest of her life. Yes, they wanted to bribe her, and Draco couldn't be happier for the help.

Well, he could be happier. He could tell them about Hermione, and she could be there to support him, but he was afraid to add anything else to the fray right now.

He hated that he hurt her, but it couldn't be helped. He would go back to the cottage later and try to explain.

Hermione set about putting up wards, very powerful protection wards, ones that would even ward off Draco Malfoy! She wasn't sure why she was surprised by the turn of events. It should have been suspected.

Stupid liar! She was at the point in her life where she hated liars almost as much as she hated letter-stealing, painting-burning thieves!

She spent most of the next day inside. It was a grey, chilly day, with a slight drizzle. In other words, it was the perfect day to write, so she did.

She wrote five more chapters. She was almost caught up with what was lost. She even added on some more intrigue and mystery. In her story, someone broke into Miranda's cottage and stole some letters she found written to her aunt. They also stole a locket.

She wrote that Miranda's world was shattered, because even though she knew she was falling in love with Waring, he had shunned her. His parents had arrived at his cousin's estate, and being the poorer, untitled relations, they convinced him to marry Lord Westlake's choice of a bride for him.

If Hermione was going to be unhappy, she saw no reason for Miranda to throw her happiness in her face. Hermione thought it was fitting her to have some melodrama in her love life, right along with Hermione.

As the late afternoon approached, Hermione heard a knock on the door. She ran down the stairs and peered out the window in the main room. She could make out that there was a man at her front door, but she couldn't tell who it was.

She walked up to the door and asked, "Who is it?"

"Harry," came the answer. She opened the door. She merely stared at him. She didn't say anything.

"How's Hermione?" Harry asked from over the threshold. She had yet to invite him in, and she had yet to greet him in return. He said, "Am I meant to stay out here forever, or are you going to invite me inside?"

The last time they had spoken, it wasn't pleasant. He had been one of the ones who assumed she had lied about Mark. That hurt her. She looked down at the floor and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Okay, I'm not invited in," he said. He sighed and said, "I was worried about you. I heard from Ginny that Malfoy was staying near here, and she seemed to think you were seeing him. I wanted to find out if that's true."

"Why does that matter?"

"Have you seen the papers lately?" he asked.

"I've been here for a week, so no, I haven't," she said. She still hadn't invited him inside.

He said, "He's in the middle of a custody dispute, did you know that?"

"He told me," she said.

"What else have you two discussed?" he inquired.

"What's this about?" she asked back. "For goodness sakes, I came here to forget men, not to enter into another relationship." She wasn't sure if she was trying to convince Harry or herself. "Why the concern all of the sudden?"

"It's not all of the sudden," he remarked. "I've been worried, that's all. I know we left things badly, and I just wanted to check on you."

"Come in, Harry," she finally relented.

Then over a cup of coffee and a bite of dinner, she told him almost everything. She told him about the tour of Carrington House that first day, her failed first date with Malfoy, the book, the letters, the painting, and finally about the break-in at the cottage. She ended with the one letter that wasn't burnt, and the fire on the beach. She left out the part about her and Malfoy having sex, because some things weren't Harry Potter's business.

Harry seemed amused at the first part of her tale, and then concerned. He said, "Do you mind if I ask Mr. Weasley some questions about his Aunt? Maybe an illegitimate heir out there wants to prove their legitimacy. Maybe they're behind the break in and behind stealing the letters. It also seems likely that someone like Malfoy might want to make sure there AREN'T any other heirs. It might lose him a fortune, and it might hurt his custody battle."

Hermione hadn't thought of that once. "I doubt that he's involved."

"I'm just thinking aloud. If his great-uncle was married to this Miriam, and if they had a child and the child lived, then it and its descendents would be rightful heirs to not only Carrington House, but maybe to all of the Malfoy fortune, since Otto was the eldest son. It bears looking into. I'll see what I can find out. I think we need to find out how Miriam died, and see if anyone is still around in the village that might have remembered her, or might have remembered stories about her."

She smiled and said, "I'm sort of glad you came now." She asked him if he wanted to spend the night at the cottage, but he declined. He wanted to start investigating things right away. He kissed her cheek and headed toward the door. He said, "Be careful. Start with the hall of records. See what you can find there. Also, go to the graveyard, and see what you can dig up, no pun intended."

She winced and said, "I hope so."

After he left she thought about what he said. Surely, Draco wasn't behind any of this. Nevertheless, he did say that he would do anything to secure his rights to his son. If he felt that those letters and portraits might deny his heritage, he might destroy them. She thought about the letter that she had that she hadn't yet showed him. She felt that it proved that Otto and Miriam weren't married, but again, she wasn't sure.

Tomorrow she would set about to unraveling this mystery. Tonight, she was going to do some more writing. Her book just turned into a mystery.

_Coming up: No Word and Digging for Information_


	12. 12 No Word and Digging for Information

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 12: No Word and Digging for Information:**

It had been two days since she had heard from Draco and she wasn't the least bit concerned. No sir, it didn't bother her in the least. If she never heard from him again, she would be just fine.

She dressed in a pretty, bright orange dress and sandals, grabbed an apple, a bottle of water, a notebook, a pen, and stuffed everything in a large bag. She went out the door and locked it (with magic thank you very much).

She decided to walk to the village. It was such a pretty day, and she didn't want to waste one second of her holiday. She wanted to enjoy everything: every ray of sunshine, every cloud in the deep blue sky, every breeze that blew her hair in her face. She wanted to savor it all, because no one knew how long it might last. She would have to go home and re-enter the real world some day.

But not today.

She found the hall of records and opened the door. There was a little bell on top of the door that clanged when she entered. There was a long counter across the room dividing the small building from a makeshift lobby, which consisted of three hardback chairs lined up along the wall of windows. A man came up to the counter and smiled. It was Phillip Cranston.

"Mr. Cranston, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"I might ask you the same. I work here. Well, let me rephrase that. My great uncle works here, but he's been ill lately, so I come in once or twice a week to do his job, which consist of sitting around and doing nothing. Now, what are you doing here?"

"I need some information," she said. She wasn't sure she wanted to, or could, trust this man. He did work for Draco, and according to Harry, Draco was a prime suspect in the case of the missing letters. Hermione almost laughed at herself when she thought of it in that perspective. She said, "I want some information about Miriam Weasley, the former owner of the cottage where I'm staying. It's kind of for my book, although my book is fiction. Anyway, let's just say I'm curious about her."

"Well, I grew up here, and I can probably tell you a bit, and I'm sure there's records on her here," he said. He lifted a piece of the counter so she could join him on the other side. As she crossed over he said, "Too bad my uncle Morris isn't here. He probably knew her personally. He's 102 years old."

"What?" she laughed. "That's old, isn't it?"

"Not that old, for wizards. Some grow to be much older," he said. He started to pull out a drawer in an old file cabinet, which was at the back of the room, in the last row. He said, "Here are copies of her records. Her birth certificate and death certificate should be in there." She leaned over his shoulder and then took the fragile papers from his hand.

She read aloud, "Miriam Constance Weasley, born April 14th, 1906." She read some more and said, "She was born in this village." She continued to read and said, "It says she was the only child of a Robert and Ophelia Weasley. So, how was she related to Mr. Weasley?"

"You mean Percy Weasley's father?" Phillips asked. "I went to school with Percy. He was always such a stuffed shirt."

She laughed and said, "He still is."

Phillip pulled open another drawer. He said, "Let's see, U, V, here it is. W. Let's look up Robert Weasley. Yes, see, his father was a George Weasley. That might be Percy's grandfather."

She said, "I don't know if that was his name or not, but could be. So Miriam wouldn't have been Mr. Weasley's aunt, but his cousin?" She seemed confused. She read Robert's file. She said, "Why would he call her his aunt?"

"Maybe she was so much older than him, and he thought of her as an aunt. Sometimes the relationship lines get messed up along the way," Phillips explained. "Find out first if George is Mr. Weasley's father."

She nodded. She said, "Can I have copies of all of these?"

"Sure, do whatever you want. I need to go upstairs for a moment." She took her wand and copied all of Miriam's records, as well as the other Weasley's records, into her notebook by touching the tip of her wand to the page, and then touching it again to the notebook. When she was finished, she called up the stairs, "Mr. Cranston?"

Phillip walked back downstairs. "Yes, Miss Granger? And you may call me Phillip, if you'd like."

"Phillip," she repeated, "will you tell me where the local graveyard is? I want to see her grave."

"Why, you made a copy of her death certificate didn't you?"

"I didn't see one in there," she said.

He frowned and looked back through the files. "Well, it has to be there. My uncle keeps very accurate records."

"Maybe someone removed it," she said.

"Doubtful. This place might look antiquated, but there's very powerful protection spells on all the records. For instance, if you had tried to make copies without asking first, you would have not been very pleased." He smiled.

She couldn't help but smile back. She leaned forward and asked, "What would have happened?"

"Let me ask you something," he said, "would you look as pretty as you do now if you were bald?"

She laughed and said, "Oh the horror."

"Seriously," he said, "there are protection wards and charms on everything, so a file like that couldn't have just disappeared."

"Maybe she didn't die here in the village," she wondered aloud.

"Let's go to that graveyard and find out. Now you have me curious," he said.

They walked along the cobbled streets and Hermione said, "I have to admit, I didn't like you at first."

"I couldn't tell," he said dryly. Then he said, "But seriously, I was there to more or less break your date with Malfoy, so of course you didn't like me. Do you like me better on closer inspection?"

"Maybe," she said.

He said, "You are much too truthful for me. I don't know how to deal with someone so forthright." He led her down a small alley, and then past a large, wooden, grey boarded up church. He pointed beyond the building and said, "The graveyard, my dear."

"Well, on to work," she replied.

They both searched the large graveyard for hours. Sometimes they searched separately, and sometimes in tandem. She found herself telling him everything, though she wasn't sure why. She told him about the letters, the paintings, and the fact that someone stole them all. She told him she just had to find out if Miriam and Otto Malfoy were married or not. She _didn't_ tell him about the last letter, the only one she had left. So far, she hadn't told anyone about that, and she wasn't sure she ever would. However, if the last letter was true, then they were _never_ married.

The place was massive, covering much land, and Hermione was about to give up when she heard Phillip call out, "I think I found it!"

She ran toward his voice. He was on his knees, moving aside vines and undergrowth. Hermione squatted down beside him. She read the marker. "Miriam Constance Weasley. Born April 14, 1906, died March 1, 1932. My, she was young. She died at age 25 years old, almost 26. That's younger than I am. That's so sad."

"Yes, it is," he agreed. She wished she had a camera to take a picture of the marker, but instead she wrote down the information in her notebook. She said, "She never married, apparently, or had children."

"Did you really think she did?" he asked.

"No, I was just commenting on the fact." She stood up and said, "The sun is so bright and it's so warm today. I think I'll go back to the cottage."

"Don't you want to see her picture?" he asked.

"Where's her picture?" she asked back, excited.

"Come with me." They walked back the way they had come, and he took her to an old stone building. It was a small house, and outside was a sign that read, "Historical Society."

They entered and a young woman was sitting at the desk. Phillip said, "Hermione, this is my younger sister, Adelphia. She runs the historical society."

"Does you whole family work for the village?" she asked.

His sister laughed and said, "Most of the citizens work for the village. Did you know during the off-season, there are only about 300 people who live here? During the summer months, like now, It swells to 5000 or more. Most of the people only have vacation homes here now, and the resorts and hotels are always packed with people on holiday. Our parents run one of the hotels."

Phillip leaned over toward Hermione and said, "The answer is yes, the whole family works for the village." He turned to his sister and said, "Delphie, will you look in the archives and see if you have a portrait, or a tintype, or maybe even a painting of a Miriam Weasley?"

She nodded and headed up the stairs. Hermione turned to Phillip and said, "Awfully good of you to help me, Phillip."

"Are you sure this is for a piece of fiction, and not for a piece of nonfiction?" he asked.

"It's more for my morbid curiosity, but I am writing a historical novel, which is a romantic mystery, and I have to admit, this is feeding my muse, so to speak."

He laughed as his sister came down with a small frame in her hand. "There wasn't one of a Miriam Weasley, but I said a little spell to draw out any pictures of anyone named Miriam and I found this. It's an old tintype photograph of a woman in a wedding dress, but the back says Miriam Malfoy."

Hermione and Phillip both took a deep breath at the same time and looked at each other. Phillip said, "I think your mystery just took on another turn."

Phillip ended up asking Hermione to lunch. She agreed. They were just being served their food when Malfoy walked into the restaurant, followed by Lucius and Narcissa, and a beautiful woman Hermione had never seen before. The woman was carrying a baby. A beautiful little baby. It had to be Draco's baby, Thomas Michael.

She ducked her head. Phillip asked, "Is anything wrong?"

He turned in his seat and saw who had entered. Just as he turned to look at them, Malfoy noticed Phillip and Hermione. He said something to his party and then walked over to their table.

"Phil, what are you doing here?" he asked. Hermione wondered why his question was directed at Phillip and not at her.

"It's called eating, my dear man," Phillip said. "I believe you are well acquainted with my lovely companion, Hermione."

Draco looked back over at his table. His father was now looking directly at them. He turned back to Hermione and Phillip and said, "Of course I know her. You bloody well know I know her." He took Hermione by the arm and lifted her from the seat. He moved her toward the back of the restaurant, near the toilets.

"What are you doing here with Cranston?" he asked.

"What are you doing here with your parents?" she asked. She wanted to say, 'and your child and his mother,' but she refrained.

"I'm sorry I haven't called on you since Saturday. It's been a strange weekend," he said.

"Is that your son?" she asked.

"Yes."

"He's a beautiful child," she said. She started to leave, but he grabbed her arm.

"Why are you here with Phil?" he asked again.

"He's helping me dig up things on Miriam and Otto," she said.

He let go of her arm and said, "Damn it, Hermione, just leave all of that alone. Someone apparently doesn't want you to find out anything about them, and yet here you are openly pursuing information!"

"It doesn't concern you," she begged.

"Everything you do concerns me," he said.

"Maybe you just don't want me to dig up any dirt that will soil your own name, huh?" she asked.

"I don't even know what you mean by that!" he said. "Listen, I have to get back out there. May I come see you tonight?"

"I don't think so. I don't want to mess up anything with you and your son, and I mean that sincerely. I'm not being spiteful, but until you can see me openly, you won't see me at all. I'm not Miriam. I won't be hidden away and shunned by you like Otto did to her."

"What?" he asked. "You are certifiable! One thing has nothing to do with another. Get out of your fantasy world. I'll come by tonight at seven."

He left her in the little breezeway. She took a deep breath, walked back out to a confused Phillip and begged, "I think I need a night out tonight, Phillip. I need to have some fun. This has been a sedate holiday so far. Care to show me what sort of nightlife this old village has?"

"I would be delighted," he said.

"Pick me up at 8:30," she said. She bent down, picked up her bag and walked out of the restaurant, head held high. Draco Malfoy would not act as if she was his dirty little secret. She had already been one man's dirty, little secret, and she would never be one again.

_Coming up: Another Lie and a Letter_


	13. 13 Another Lie and a Letter

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 13: Another Lie and a Letter:**

A night on the town was just what Hermione Granger needed. She needed to forget her troubles. She needed to forget her cares. She needed to forget about Miriam, Otto, Miranda, Waring and most of all Draco Malfoy. More than anything, she needed to answer her door; someone was banging on it like there was no tomorrow.

She looked at her watch. It couldn't be Phillip. He wasn't supposed to pick her up until 8:30 and it was only seven. Then she remembered what Draco had said about stopping by tonight at seven. Surely, he wasn't serious! She opened the door and saw Draco Malfoy holding an envelope in one hand, the index finger of his other hand in his mouth. Before she could ask him about his strange behaviour, he pushed his way into the cottage, threw the envelope on the table and walked to the kitchen sink. He turned on the faucet and with his finger under the water he said, "A ruddy old red barn owl just bit my finger when I tried to get your mail from him, stupid bugger!"

"Maybe that will teach you to leave other people's mail alone," she said. She walked over, looked at the brown envelope, and said, "I wonder who it's from."

"Granger, my finger!" he said.

She looked at him and said, "The plasters are in the bathroom." She opened the letter.

He huffed out of the room. He walked back in the main room with the plaster and he said, "Some help please."

She put the letter down, walked up to him, looked at his finger and said, "It's nothing." She took the plaster from him and put it on his finger.

He said, "Some sympathy would be nice as well."

"I'm sorry for me that you're here," she said.

"I meant sympathy for me!" he said. He sat at the table and muttered some curse words under his breath as he started to read her letter.

She sat in the other chair and grabbed it from him. She began to read and he interrupted by saying, "Why are you so dressed up?"

Without looking up she said, "I'm going out tonight."

"Where?"

She continued to read, a frown forming on her face and she said, "Wherever he decides to take me."

"Who is he?" he asked sarcastically.

She put the letter down, said, "PHILLIP," curtly and picked it back up to finish reading.

Draco leaned back and laughed and said, "Is it a date or something?"

She didn't answer.

He leaned forward. "Is it a date?"

She continued to read.

He smacked the letter out of her hands and asked, "Is it a bloody date?"

She gave him a death glare, picked up the letter, and walked over to the loveseat. She read the rest of the letter. When she finished he was standing in front of her. She finally answered his question. "I don't know how to answer that. He might think it's a date. I don't know if I do. I guess I might. I don't know."

"Well that clears that up," he said with as much sarcasm as he could muster. He sat next to her and said, "Let's get things in order here. First, who wrote the letter? You seem upset."

"Mr. Weasley. Harry told him I had questions about his aunt. He wrote me a short biography on her, however, the facts he stated in his letter don't coincide with the things I found out about her today."

"What did you find out today?"

"I went to the Hall of Records, and Phillip showed me her birth certificate, and it said she was born here in this county. It also said she was an only child. When there was no death certificate, we went to the graveyard and found her grave. She died young. Then he took me to see his sister who showed me an old tintype that showed her in a wedding dress, and it said her name was Miriam Malfoy."

"My Uncle didn't marry her, I'm sure," he said.

"Then Phillip or someone lied to me. I'm so sick of people lying to me!" She suddenly stood up.

"Maybe Mr. Weasley lied in his letter," he pointed out.

"Why would he do that?" she asked. "His letter states that she was born in London, moved here when she was a young adult, all by herself, and that she was the younger sister of his father. It also said she was well into her nineties when she died, in London."

Draco frowned as well. "That is strange."

"Why would he lie to me?" she asked.

He wasn't sure, but he knew Phillip wasn't above lying if it suited his purpose, but what could that purpose be? Did he know something that Draco didn't know? Something about Otto and Miriam? Did they truly marry? Did they have a child together? Draco's head was spinning with questions, and one look to Hermione proved that hers was as well.

"I'm sick of everyone lying to me," she finally said. She took her hair down from the perfect bun it was in, and slipped off her shoes.

"So does that mean your date is kaput?" he asked, optimistically.

"Since he fabricated everything he told me, or so it appears he did, then I would say yes, it's over before it started. Why would he concoct such an elaborate scheme?" she asked. She looked crestfallen, and Draco knew it had more to do with the lies about Miriam than about her cancelled date with Cranston. That made him feel somewhat better.

"We'll try to find out, I promise," he said. Hermione walked over to the back door, stepped out on the porch to find that a steady summer rain had turned the pink evening sky a cold, steel grey. She felt the sky and rain matched her feelings perfectly. She leaned against the banister and sighed.

He trapped her in front of his body, one hand on each side of her, and he whispered in her ear, "I would have gone mad with jealousy if you had gone out with him. I mean, didn't what happened the other night between us mean anything? What we did was special to me. Wasn't it to you?" He kissed her pulse point, his hands traveling up her arm, to circle her waist, as he recalled the way she felt while they made love.

She seemed distant. She hadn't yet told him that it was special to her, too. He hoped he hadn't mucked everything up. He said, "Hermione?" The way he said her name held many questions.

"Is your son and his mother still here?" she asked.

"Yes, they are," he said.

"Then you should go. I'll just spend a quiet evening at home, alone," she said. She continued to lean against his chest and she looked up at him with such a longing that he felt so bad for hurting her, no matter how unintentional it was. His son was important, but surely, he had room for both of them.

"I told my parents you were staying here," he said. "They weren't very happy, and they forbade me from seeing you tonight, and then I reminded them that I was only three years from being thirty years old, and unless they thought they could ground me, or take away my broom as they did when I was a child, I was free to do what I wanted."

"What's her name?" Hermione couldn't remember if he had told her.

Had she even heard him? Why did she want to know her name? "It doesn't matter," he said.

"It does to me," she said in a whisper.

"Her name is Candace," he said.

"Is she pretty?"

"Hermione, please," he said.

"Is she pretty? She has a pretty name."

"I think Hermione is a pretty name," he said, kissing her hairline, by her eye.

She turned in his arms. She bent her head to lean on his shoulder. "Hermione is an old lady name."

He couldn't help but laugh. He said, "When you're an old lady, it'll fit you perfectly, then."

"Is she pretty?" She really wanted to know if he thought she was pretty. Hermione had only caught a glimpse of her, and she thought the woman was pretty.

He could tell she wasn't going to leave it alone. "She's beautiful, but not as beautiful as you, and do you know why I think that?"

She grimaced and said, "You are mentally stunted?"

"No," he said, with a grin, "I think that because I love you, not her."

"I feel sad, and not just for me, but for Miriam and Otto, and I just want to know the truth," she said.

"I'm telling you the truth," he said. He held her closer. "I love you with every fiber of my being, and with everything that I am or ever will be."

"While that was beautiful, the way you waxed poetically about your love for me, I meant I want to know the truth about Miriam and Otto, and I'm not even sure why it's so important to me, but it is," she explained.

Draco held her and said, "I've never 'waxed poetically' about anything, and I'm not even sure what that means, but there's one person who might be able to help us. I'll help you find out the truth, if you'd like."

"Sure," she said, halfheartedly. She didn't know whether or not to believe him.

"We owe to it Miranda Gray, with an A," he said. He kissed her lips gently.

"And to Waring Glynn, with a Y before the N," she answered. "I started it over, you know. The book. I'm further on it now then I was before."

"And let me guess, it's a mystery now," he said. He smiled down at her and kissed first one cheek than the other.

"It's still a love story, too. I want to be sure that Miranda and Waring marry in the end. We might not be able to give Miriam and Otto a happy ending, and I'm not sure what our outcome will be, but by golly, Miranda and Waring will have a wedding if it kills me," she said.

"Let's hope it doesn't go that far, and don't count us out yet. Everyone should marry someone they love," he chimed in.

_Flashback to picnic:_

_Evening was falling slowly over the partygoers at Theo's picnic. He told everyone as soon as night came he had fireworks planned. Draco already felt fireworks, each time he looked at Hermione Granger._

_She was sitting on Ron Weasley's lap, and he was trying to force a piece of cake in her mouth. She was hitting his hand away and laughing. Draco felt jealous. He wanted that type of relationship with her. Well, not the force-feeding part, but the ease of having her in his arms, on his lap, smiling and laughing together. If he were ever lucky enough to have her like that, he would give anything to keep her._

_Today had been one of the best days he had, had in a long time and in a few hours, it would be over, and he would be unhappy once again. In a few days, his life would be over. What would be the harm if he didn't marry Claire? No one should marry someone they didn't love. He wanted to marry for love, and love only. He would never have that with Claire. He could only picture that with one person, and that person was presently smashing a piece of cake in the Weasel's face. _

He realized something as he held a sad Hermione Granger in his arms. He wanted her to be his wife. He would find a way to have his son and her, if it _killed_ him. He was about to tell her that, when there was another knock at her door. He said, "It couldn't be another letter."

She lifted her head from his chest and said, "I think it's my date. I don't know if I can face him. I don't know why he would have lied to me."

"There's one way to find out," he said.

"How?"

"Go on the date with him and ask him why," he said. He smiled and then said, "But come back here, to me, when your date is done. Oh, and one more thing," he said, with a smile. He kissed her forehead, his hands skimming her cheeks, to touch her neck and then her shoulders. "Don't you dare kiss him goodnight."

_Coming up: A Terrible Evening and a Headache_


	14. 14 A Terrible Evening and a Headache

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 14: A Terrible Evening and a Headache:**

With Draco's blessing, Hermione went on her 'date' with Phillip. They went to a pub first, where she didn't drink, or even talk very much. He could tell that she was not having a good time. He suggested that they go somewhere else.

She suggested they go somewhere quiet where they could talk.

He led her to an outside courtyard, which had a fountain and stone benches all around. There were many tourist milling about, so Hermione felt relatively safe with him here. She actually still liked the man, yet he must have gone to great lengths to lie to her, and she wanted to know why. She just didn't know how to find out the reason without coming right out and asking.

They sat on the side of the fountain. She turned to put her fingers in the water. He said, "Shall I give you a coin so you can make a wish? This is a magical community, after all, and it's well known that everyone gets one wish, once in their lifetime, from this fountain, and it always comes true."

She snickered and said, "Oh really? I'm not sure I believe that."

He reached in his pocket, handed her a Knut, and responded, "Give it a go. What do you have to lose?"

She stood up, threw the coin and shut her eyes. She made a wish before she even heard the splash of the water. He said, "Now don't tell anyone, or it'll never come true."

"I won't," she answered. She sat back down and with the toe of her shoe, she traced the lines between the cobbled stone of the sidewalk.

"Why are you so distant?" he asked.

"Did you lie to me?" she finally asked him.

"About what?"

"Everything you had me discover, or rather, that we discovered together about Miriam, were they lies?" she inquired.

He looked genuinely confused. "Why would I lie about that?"

"Maybe you have something to gain from it," she said. "Maybe you're trying to steer me against the truth. I don't know anymore." She turned back to the water and wondered if her wish would come true. She wished to know the truth.

"I have nothing to gain by lying to you, and that's the only reason I would ever lie: if I have something to gain." He stood up and seemed actually upset by her accusation.

"Mr. Weasley wrote to me today," she told him. "He told me that Miriam wasn't born here. She was born in London, and that she was his father's younger sister, and that she moved here when she was young. She lived to be an old lady, and she died in London. She never married." She stood up to face him. "I should have known that. I mean, Ginny said they used to vacation here in the summers when she was young, and that her great aunt was a strange old woman. I seemed to have forgotten that in my quest for knowledge."

"Listen," he began, "I don't know why the information we found out doesn't jive with what Mr. Weasley told you. I really don't. I'll try to find out, but I didn't orchestrate any of this. That's where you need to start your accusations, my dear. Find out who would have something to gain from all of this. Find out who would have something to gain if Miriam and Otto were secretly married, or if not married, if they did have a secret love child, and find out who would have something to gain if they didn't. Because it seems to me," he continued, pulling on her hands to pull her closer to him, "that the two sides of the story are warring with each other. The person who took the letters, your book and the paintings, doesn't want anyone to suspect that they might have had a relationship. They want you to believe that they didn't. The person who planted the fake documents, and the false gravestone, and the picture with the name Miriam Malfoy, if those are indeed forged, wants you to think that they did. Either the culprit is confused, or two people are working with different agendas." He paused for a moment and said, "You know, there's something else as well. Perhaps a bit of both stories are true. Mr. Weasley might not know everything about his aunt."

He let go of her hands and started to walk away. He turned back and said, "However, I'm not either of those people I just described. You think so lowly of me without even having gotten to know me, and that's a pity. Usually people only dislike me after they know me a while." He smiled and then walked away.

Hermione felt worse than before. He was right. It did seem that someone, or perhaps TWO people, was going to great lengths to make her believe two different things. All she wanted was the truth, not a thin facsimile of the truth.

She sat back down and took off her shoes. She hung her head. The moon was bright overhead, so she soon saw a shadow cast over her legs. She looked up. It was Draco. He gave her a small smile and she stood up and rushed to his arms.

"Bad date?" he asked.

"I feel bad, if that means anything," she said. "I think I hurt Phillip's feelings."

"He'll get over it," Draco said, holding her tight, and stroking her back up and down with one hand.

She pushed away from him to some extent and said, "He made a good point, though. It does seem as if there are two people, working for different agendas. One who might be afraid that Miriam and Otto were married, or had a child together and one who might be afraid that they weren't. I'm so confused."

"You need to find out who would benefit from both scenarios," he said, taking her arm and leading her to a bench.

"My shoes," she said.

He rolled his eyes and said, "I am forever rescuing your shoes." He walked over to the fountain, picked up her shoes, and sat beside her, with the shoes still in his hands. He pointed one shoe toward her and said, "The only ones who would benefit if Miriam and Otto weren't married or had a child would be me and my family, as far as I know."

"That's why you're the prime suspect," she said sincerely.

He started to laugh, and then saw that she was serious, so he threw one of her shoes as far away as he could and said, "That's what you get for saying something awful like that!"

"Well, Harry gave me the idea first, but it makes sense," she justified.

He threw her other shoe just as far, and that one landed in a bush.

"Draco Malfoy, go get my shoes!" She pointed toward her wayward shoes.

"Fuck you and fuck Potter!" He stood up and added, "And fuck your shoes! You don't think I would cause you such distress that I would burn your book, or wreck your cottage, do you?"

She hung her head and said, "I don't really think so," because she didn't. He felt bad for throwing her shoes now. He stood in front of her and cupped her face in his hands. Hermione looked up at him, adding, "It could be your father."

He let go of her face quickly and said, "If I had another article of your clothing to throw I would. In fact, take your dress off so I can throw it up a tree!"

She laughed. He was actually serious, but then he laughed, too. She had a point. Now that Draco had an heir, it seemed like something his father might do. He would have to do some investigating on his own.

"Who would benefit if they were married?" she asked. "Or if they at least had a child out of wedlock?"

"That child's heirs?" he asked.

"But we don't know that there were any," she declared. "WE NEED THE TRUTH!" She stood up and said, "Now I wish I had something to throw."

"Take off your dress," he said.

"Shut up about my dress!"

He smiled and said, "I have an idea. The attic at Carrington House has all sorts of secrets. We'll start there tomorrow. Do some undercover work, if you may. Plus, my parents are heading back to London for a few days, starting tomorrow."

"Are Candace and Thomas going back, too?" she asked.

"They left today. They'll be back." He sat down again and pulled her to his lap. He held her tight and said, "There's a large masked ball, held in a couple of days, at the end of the summer season, every year at Carrington House. It's tradition. All of the locals come, as well as the tourists and the families who have summer homes. My father wants to make the announcement there."

She felt lightheaded. She could barely breathe. "What announcement?"

"The fact that Thomas is my son," he said.

"And?" She was almost too afraid to ask, but she knew deep in her heart that there was an 'and' in there.

"My marriage to Candace," he said quickly.

She got up from his lap rapidly. He held onto her hand. She pulled it away from him and said, "You coward! If you hadn't thrown my shoes away, I would throw them at your head right now!" She ran down the cobbled streets, the ragged stones tearing at the tender skin of her feet.

He shouted her name. "HERMIONE!"

She looked back once and then disapparated away.

She arrived at the cottage, and threw herself on the bed. She had a massive headache, many questions, and a hole in her heart caused by a man named Draco Malfoy. In addition, her feet hurt.

Draco walked around the courtyard, looking for her shoes. Finally, he just summoned them with his wand, and then he apparated to the cottage. He left the shoes by the front door. He could hear her crying even through the door. He walked over to the front window, where he knew the bedroom was. He said loudly, "Hermione? Listen to me, please. I didn't say that I was going to make such an announcement. I'm not. I told him that. Please believe me. I'm not going to marry someone I don't love ever again! Let me in, please. Let me explain."

She was no longer in the bedroom. As soon as she heard him say her name outside her window she apparated upstairs. She took out her Muggle pen and a piece of parchment and took out all her anger, frustration, heartache, and pain on the man in her story, Mr. Waring Glynn, with a Y before the N.

Draco apparated to the back porch, and sat down to wait for her. She couldn't stay inside forever. He would sleep out on the porch if he had to, but he would make her listen to him. He loved her, and he wasn't giving her up again, not that he really gave her up before, but he felt as if he had.

Draco remembered the picnic again. When nighttime came, and the fireworks began, he sat on a blanket, next to Hermione, and he felt pure bliss. He wanted to feel that again.

_Flashback:_

_Hermione sat on the blanket, by herself, so Draco walked up to her and said, "Is this seat reserved?"_

"_Yes," she said._

"_Really?" He raised one eyebrow._

"_Yes," she repeated. Then she mimed picking up a piece of paper from beside her and said, "This seat is reserved for a Mr. Draco Malfoy." She looked up at him and said, "If you are such a person, you may sit down. If not, move on your way."  
_

"_I believe that is my name," he said. He sat beside her as the first loud boom went off overhead. They both looked up at the sky at the exact same time. A burst of light, both red and blue, flashed before their eyes. _

_She took a deep satisfied breath and said, "It seems like this is an appropriate end to summer, doesn't it, Malfoy?"_

_He couldn't agree more, but to him, it felt like a beginning. Then with regret, he realized it was a beginning that he really couldn't participate in, because he was getting married to someone else, and Hermione would never know what this day, or her presence, meant to him. He looked away. He felt a hand on his shoulder. He closed his eyes. He reached up with his opposite hand, and closed it over her small hand. He slowly turned to look at her, and he saw the reflection of a gold pinwheel reflected in her eyes. He leaned over and said, "I wonder."_

"_You wonder what?" she said._

"_I just wonder."_

He shook his head, no longer wanting to remember. Damn her. She had to let him in the cottage. He had to explain. He banged on the back door. "Hermione, let me in now or I'll huff and puff and blow the stupid door off the hinges!"

She opened the door slowly and said, "I have a headache, so please don't shout."

"Will you let me explain?" he asked.

"No," she said. Her answer didn't correspond with what she did next. She took his hand and led him back to the chair on the back porch. She pushed him down and then sat on his lap. She said, "Listen here, Malfoy, you can have your son and not marry the mother. You have to start standing up to your father. What are you going to do, be a thirty-year-old man someday, who's afraid to blow his nose unless his daddy tells him he can? You aren't marrying anyone but me."

He raised both eyebrows this time and said, "You don't say?"

"I do say." She rested her head inside the crook of his neck. She cuddled next to him and said, "I really do have a headache."

"I really do love you, and if you say that I can't marry that woman, then I guess I can't." He would amuse himself for a moment before he told her the truth. She was too smart for that, though.

"Is that what you were going to tell me?" she asked.

"Yes, Granger, that's it," he said.

"So I really wield no power over you, do I?" she asked.

He chucked, and responded with, "You have more power than you'll ever know, and you have for a very long time. I'll never be a grown man who does what his father tells him to do. On the other hand, I plan to be a grown man who does what his fiancé tells him to do, and after that, I'll be a grown man whose wife tells him what to do."

"Who is this bossy woman? I'd like to meet her," she whispered.

"You are well acquainted," he sighed back. He picked her up and carried her inside. He placed her on the bed and said, "Point me to some headache remedies, Granger. I'll fetch them for you."

"My purse is upstairs, and I have some Muggle aspirin. Bring me my purse, slave," she ordered.

"I rather like the domineering side of you, have I mentioned that?" he asked from the doorway.

"A time or two," she stated back. She closed her eyes. He ran up the stairs two at a time. He saw her purse on the desk. He also saw some fresh pages to her story. He picked up the pages, placed them under his shirt, and then took her some aspirin and water. After she was settled in bed, he assured her that he would spend the night with her. He said he wanted to sit out on the porch for a while. She nodded, as she started to doze.

He sat on the porch, took the pages out of his shirt, and he started to read. This story really was contagious. He was mesmerized by it. It also was beginning to read more and more like it really could be the story of Otto and Miriam. Could this cottage itself be feeding her muse? He knew one way to find out. He told her he would take her to the attic tomorrow, but he didn't want to wait. He walked back inside, tucked her pages under her pillow, kissed her forehead, locked her inside the cottage, tight, and then he disapparated from the front garden directly to the attic of Carrington House. He lit his wand. He would find the answers that not only Hermione sought, but which he now found that he too had to find out, if not for her, and not for her characters, then for himself.

_Coming up: Dreams and Screams_


	15. 15 Dreams and Screams

**all characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 15: Dreams and Screams:**

The attic of Carrington House was long known to Draco as a place of solitude and mystery. When he visited there as a child, he would often go exploring the attic late at night, just as he was doing now. The attic was a series of rooms, narrow halls, and large spaces with dormers. He knew this place by heart. He went to the attic that was over the left wing of the house, and opened the door to a place that was familiar to him when he was younger. He entered a room that had old toys and games in it. When he was little, he would come up here and play. He moved aside music boxes, crates with dolls, model brooms and toy trains. He accidentally kicked over a pile of books. He lit several candles that were placed throughout the room so he could use his wand for something besides light. He knew there was a trunk in here somewhere. He found it when he was small, and he often thought it was out of place among the other 'childish' things in the room.

He pushed aside a brass cradle and pulled on an old Windsor rocker to find the old brown trunk with black straps. He sat on the dusty floor, and opened the trunk by removing the old lock with his wand.

Inside was a treasure, he was sure. For inside this trunk was all that remained of his great-uncle Otto.

To hear his father talk of the man, he was a misfit. Older than his grandfather by five years, he never held the same pureblood beliefs as the other men in their family. He would have been in school around the time of Voldemort, but he never became one of his lackeys. He was in Slytherin, but he didn't have very many Slytherin traits, which according to Draco's father and grandfather, made the man an outcast.

He sifted through magical pictures, reports from Hogwarts, and a book or two, until he found a bundle of letters. He remembered seeing them when he was young, and tossing them to the corner of the trunk, in favour of other, more interesting trinkets.

This time, the letters were the exact thing he wanted to see. He took off the red string and pulled one of the fragile, yellowed pieces of parchments from the envelope. Instead of reading it, though, he went to the back to see if it had a signature. It did. It was from Miriam. Almost too afraid to read the contents, Draco almost put the letter back. He could take them to Hermione and they could read them together, but no, he impulsively opted instead to turn it back to the front, and to read it in its entirety.

Hermione woke up, though the sky was still dark. She was confused for a moment, and as she sat up, she immediately saw the pages of her story sticking out from underneath the corner of her pillow. She wondered how the story got there. She got up, looked at her watch, it was only 4:37 am, and she went to look for Draco.

Draco stopped reading for a moment. The letters were almost too sad. It was apparent from these letters, and from the ones that were destroyed, the ones from Otto that they found in the cottage, that these two lost souls were deeply in love, but they were never allowed to be together. It made him think about his own life. What if he was still with Claire? What if he was forced to marry someone else he didn't love, like Candace? He would pine away forever for Hermione. He knew he would. He had been pining for her almost since the night of the picnic that fateful summer.

_Flashback:_

_The fireworks ended, too soon in Draco's opinion, and he was aware that they both remained on their backs, on the blanket. His hand had somehow come to hold hers. He turned to look at her, and she at him, at the exact same time. The moon was full and bright, and a silvery grey light danced across the planes of her face, covering her features with moonlight and shadow. His heart felt full. This was what he wanted: This young, beautiful, honest, breath of fresh air. He wanted to marry for love. Someday he would. Someday, she would be his._

_She turned to her side, still holding his hand. She cradled her face in her other hand. She asked, "What happens after tonight, Draco?"_

_What could he say? What would he say?_

A knot caught in Draco's chest. He became choked when he thought of how closely he came to being like Otto, and even Waring. He would never let their fate be his own. He would have his love. He would never let her go, not for anything, or any reason.

When Hermione ascertained that Draco was no longer in the cottage, she took her story back up to her desk. She needed to write. She had just had a dream, and she needed to put it immediately to paper. It was so real. In her dream, her characters, who were growing to look more and more like Miriam and Otto, had a bitter fight. Waring begged Miranda to meet him and he vowed that they would run off and get married. She told him that she never wanted to hide their love. Waring told her that he wanted to marry her, but it had to be in secret. Finally, she relented, and they agreed to meet and marry in secret, but then he never showed.

He just left. Disappeared. And in her desperation, she went out to the rocky path that led to the sea, and she prayed to the heavens above. Then someone called her name, and she turned to see who was calling for her. That was when Hermione woke up. She rushed upstairs to her desk, put down her finished pages, and picked up parchment and pen. She started to write but then she saw something that made her heart beat widely in her chest. She dropped the pages of her story on the floor in shock. She leaned against the little gabled window, and squinted her eyes, to see if what she was seeing was real or an apparition. She even opened the window. Down on the rocky surface to the left side of her cottage was a woman, standing on a large boulder, overlooking the sea. She had long red hair, which flowed in the gentle wind. It was just like in her dream. Just like in her story! The moon was starting to set in the sky and in another hour or so the sun would replace it, but there was still enough light for her to make out whom it was. But it couldn't be. But it was. It looked a lot like Miriam. Hermione slipped down the stairs and went outside.

Draco read the letter and then clutched it to his chest. He read another and another. Soon, hours had passed, and it was almost dawn, but he was so engrossed in the letters that he wasn't even aware of any time passing.

These last letters were so sad. He had only read a handful of the ones Otto had written to Miriam, but now, after reading her letters to him, he wished he had read them all. He wanted to piece both sets of letters together, so he could fully understand their story, because from what he could make out, it was a sad love story, with a tragic ending.

He apparently had asked her to marry him, she had said yes, and then he never showed up. He racked his brain to try to remember what happened to his uncle. He recalled that his father said that he went out one day to the village, and he never returned. Everyone assumed he had just left. Some assumed he met an unlucky end, such as death. Draco even entertained the notion, when all of this first started, that perhaps he did meet with Miriam, and they did run off to marry, and that perhaps they lived happily ever after, never to be heard from again.

Nonetheless, from the stories of Mr. Weasley, who said he visited his aunt when she was old, and that she died a spinster, alone in London, that theory couldn't be true. In addition, if these letters were genuine, which Malfoy assumed they were, then it seemed that Miriam's heart was broken by Otto, because he never showed up on the day he was to meet her, the day they were to run off and get married.

The last letter, which looked as if it perhaps had never been read before, Miriam asked Otto why. Why did he leave? Why didn't he come? Why, why, why? If Otto had read this letter, why had he never answered her questions?

The mystery, instead of unraveling, was getting deeper and deeper. Draco was more confused than ever. He had to find out what happened to Otto. He didn't know how to do that, but he had to find out a way. What started as curiosity was now morbid obsession on his part, and he knew he simply had to find the answers, and for some reason, he thought he needed to find them out quickly. He also needed to go find Hermione and tell her everything that he had learned.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_She walked across the rocky decline, wishing at that moment that she had dressed and put on shoes. She was in a thin cotton nightgown, which she had slipped on during the middle of the night. She was closer to the waif-like mist when she heard someone calling her name. She turned, saw him, and then she slipped._

_She screamed, and the scream cut through him like a knife. He ran to the edge of a protruding rock, and looked down below. There she lay, like a broken china doll, unmoving._ _He ran down beside her. He gasped when he saw her. She truly looked dead._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There was a loud banging on the door to the cottage. Why wasn't she answering? He knew she had to be there. It wasn't even dawn. Then he heard a scream.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_He picked her up and held her to his chest. He wanted to tell her so many things, and now he may never have a chance._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Someone blasted the door to the cottage clean off the hinges. Hermione ran down the stairs, frightened, wand drawn. There was Draco, looking as if he had seen a ghost. He exclaimed, "I heard a scream!"

Hermione threw her wand to the ground, clutched her hand to her chest, ran into his arms, and said, "I think I just killed Miranda."

He held her tightly and said, "I have even worse news. I think someone killed Otto."

_Coming up: A Dance and Deceit_


	16. 16 A Dance and Deceit

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 16 – A Dance and Deceit:**

"Wait a minute," Draco said, just realizing what she had said. "What do you mean you think you just killed Miranda? Either you did or you didn't, besides, who cares? She's a fictional character."

"I care!" she said. Then she took his hand and sat him down on the fourth step from the bottom in front of her once again destroyed front door. She sat beside him and explained. "I had a dream about Miranda and Waring, as odd as that sounds. In my dream, Waring wanted to marry Miranda, but keep it a secret. He feared for her life. He was afraid if they married, his cousin, Parrish would try to stop it, by any means. She didn't want to be anyone's secret, so she told him no, but he kept after her, so she finally relented. She went to meet him on the bluffs overlooking the sea, beside the cottage, but he never showed. That's when I woke up."

He was making a forward motion with his hands, his impatience showing, and he said, "Get to the part where you killed her so I can tell you what I found out."

She gave him a disgusted look then said, "Anyway, I woke up, couldn't find you, so I went to write all of this down, and as I was writing about it, I looked outside and I swore I saw Miriam outside on the cliff."

"You mean Miranda, your character," he responded.

"I mean Miriam, the dead woman, only she was young and beautiful, so I went out to the cliff to see if what I was seeing was real or not, but when I reached out for her, she turned to mist, and then a man called my name, I turned around, and I fell off the cliff."

He frowned. He felt her forehead. "Either you've gone insane, or you're delirious with fever." She hit his hand away. He put it back. She hit it away. He put it back. She hit it away and smacked him on the arm. He cupped her breast. She looked shocked and he said, "Well, if I'm going to get smacked, I want to deserve it." He let go of her breast and said, "I heard you scream, but you were upstairs, nowhere near the cliffs."

"I know," she said, standing. "That's the odd thing. I was really writing, I was really looking out the window at a mirage whom I thought was a dead woman, then I thought I really went out to see her, and I thought I fell off the cliff, but when I heard the banging on the door, I woke up to find out that I was leaning over the desk, sleeping once more, and I looked at the last thing I wrote, and I wrote, 'Miranda died' only I have no memory of writing that and that's when I screamed."

"You said that whole long sentence without taking one breath," he said.

"Would you pay attention?"

"I am! I paid attention that you can talk, talk, talk, and never seem to breathe. Now, do you want to hear real news, not just more of your make-believe dream news?"

"Fine, what's your news?" she harped, sitting next to him once more.

"I think someone killed Otto."

"Why?" she asked, suddenly interested.

"I don't know why they killed him," he said.

She actually shook him (it was either that or slap him), and she said, "Why do you think he died?"

He took the last letter out of his pocket. "These are Miriam's letters to Otto. They had planned to secretly meet, and secretly marry, but he never showed up….hey! That's like your dream."

She had a sharp intake of breath and said, "It is." She read the letter. When she was finished she looked at him and said, "He could have just had cold feet. Maybe he didn't love her as much as she loved him. Maybe he succumbed to the wishes of his family. There's no proof that he died or that someone killed him,"

Draco took the letter from her, folded it with reverence, stuck it back in his pocket and took her hands. "We don't know much about them, but what they wrote to each other, correct?" She nodded. "Those letters were only meant for each other's eyes. They were truthful with each other in those letters, without prejudice or fear; they openly proclaimed their love, at least to each other, and at least in the letters. The letters don't lie. They loved each other. A love like that can't be forgotten, or cast aside, and it never dies."

She was filled with love and pride for him in that moment. She reached out, stroked his face, and asked, "What makes you so sure?"

"Because it's the same way I feel for you," he said simply.

She smiled. "I'm sorry I smacked you."

"I'm sorry Miranda's dead. Maybe you can bring her back to life," he said. "You know, one little stroke of the pen should do it."

"I don't even remember writing that. It's so odd." She stood up and walked up the stairs, and he followed. Hermione picked up the pages of her story and started to straighten them and put them on the desk, when she pointed toward the horizon.

"It's dawn," she said. "It so beautiful."

He looked at her and said, "Yes, it is." He helped her with her story and then he took the other letters out of his pocket. He handed them to her to read. He went to fix them some breakfast, as she began to read Miriam's letters to Otto.

When she had finished, she tied the letters back up with the string and handed them to him. She started to wash the dishes and proclaimed, "You know, she never once called him, 'My husband' the way he called her, 'his wife' in his letters."

"Maybe that was just his form of endearment to her, or wishful thinking," he surmised.

"Or maybe someone wanting us to think they were married," she said. "Something's bothering me." She sat back down at the table, and took his hands. "These letters, the ones that are from Miriam to Otto, which you found in the attic of Carrington House, just don't seem to match the ones we found here, that were from Otto to her."

"How so?"

"These seem more sincere. By comparison, those seem contrived. In addition, if she spent the last few years of her life in London, wouldn't she have had all her things that were near and dear to her close by? Would she have left the letters here?"

"You think those letters were fake?"

"Maybe. Maybe someone wanted us to see them, and wanted us to believe they were married, and then just as easily destroyed them. Maybe the person who killed Otto is behind all of this. I don't know." She placed her head on the table. "My mind is reeling. I wish there was someone we could speak to about this. I wish Phillip's uncle wasn't ill."

Draco looked confused. He was sliding his hand up and down her back and he said, "His uncle?"

"The one that runs the Hall of Records," she said, sitting up.

"Phillip told you about his uncle?" he asked.

"His great uncle and he only told me that he was ill and that he usually ran the Hall of Records," she said.

Draco stood up again and said, "His uncle is a really bad piece of work and I want you to stay away from him. There has always been talk that he was a close follower of Voldemort's, from the first time that Voldemort was around. Back when he was just plain old Tom Riddle."

"Really?" she asked. "Phillip never mentioned that."

"Well, he wouldn't, would he?" Draco stood up and said, "I have to leave, sweetheart. I have to get ready for that blasted party tonight. You will come, won't you? Be my date."

She smiled because he called her 'sweetheart'. No one had ever called her that before. "Have you told your parents about us yet?" she asked.

"It'll be done by tonight." He pulled on her arm, to force her to stand. He leaned his head to the side, to mimic her movement. She smiled and then so did he. He leaned forward and kissed her lips slowly. He placed his hands flat on her back and pressed her closely up against him. He drew one finger down the side of her face, to her neck, and said, "It's a masquerade, you know."

She lifted her eyebrows and whispered, "Does that mean you want me to hide my identity, because I'm not like Miranda and Miriam, I hid for a man once, and I won't do it again."

"No, no," he said, kissing her neck between words. "I just meant, wouldn't it be wicked for you to dress up like Miriam, with a long red wig, and I'll be Otto? Everyone who's anyone from the village will be there, including Phil's great-uncle Morrison Cranston. We might shock a few people, and discover a few secrets."

She pulled away from him and said, "I know I've said I've loved you before, but I have to say, your devious side makes me love you even more."

"I aim to please," he said as his mouth lowered on hers. "Now, Candace will be there with my son, but I promise you, I'm all yours tonight."

"Don't forget that," she said. They walked to the door and she said, "Do be a dear and replace my front door. I have a dance to get ready for."

"It's twelve hours away," he said with a laugh.

However, she wasn't listening. She went off to shower, then she wanted to go to the village to see this old Morrison Cranston herself, and then she had a damsel to bring back to life. Miranda was going to live to see happiness, even if Miriam never did.

_Coming up: A Mask and a Mistake_


	17. 17 A Mask and A Mistake

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 17: A Mask and A Mistake:**

First things first – Hermione showered, dressed for the day, and then transfigured some clothing into a costume for the party tonight. She took a hat she had never worn (she wondered why she had brought it), and transfigured it into a long, red, flowing wig. She took a pair of sandals, made them into a pair of slippers, bejeweled with emerald and diamond like gems. She took her favourite sundress, the one with little cherries all over it, and the one she wore that time at Theo's picnic, and transfigured it into a long, green, silk gown, which seemed as if it were right from another era. She was going to go disguised as a cross between Miriam and Miranda tonight. She decided she needed a mask, after all, was it not a masquerade ball? She took a piece of silver silk ribbon, and made it into a silver, sleek mask.

She could hardly wait for the party. Completely over the moon with her costume, she decided it was time to go to the village. She went right to the Hall of Records. She opened the door and called out, "Is anyone here?" She waited a moment and then after fifteen seconds, when no one responded, she called out once more. "Hello, am I alone here or what?" She lifted up the piece of counter, which separated the two sides of the room, and started toward the other side when she encountered an old man coming from the back room. He didn't look a day under 100.

He demanded, "Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?"

She backed up, closed the piece of counter, and smiled. This had to be old man Morrison Cranston, in the wrinkled flesh. "Mr. Cranston?" she asked, hesitantly, and still smiling.

"Who wants to know?" the crotchety old man asked.

"My name is Hermione Granger and I have a few questions for you," she started.

"You are the Mudblood that's staying up at Miriam Weasley's old cottage," he stated.

Hermione's smile turned to a frown. "I am staying there, and I guess I am a Mudblood, at least in your opinion, which doesn't matter in the slightest to me. May I ask you a few questions?"

"No, get out!" he shouted, pointing his crooked, old finger toward the door. "I have nothing to say to you, young woman!"

"Please, I just have a few questions, regarding Miriam Weasley and Otto Malfoy," she began.

"You mean the blood traitor and his whore?" he spat.

Hermione took a deep breath to keep from cursing the old man. She would not be deterred. She asked, "Did Miriam and Otto ever marry?"

"I won't talk to you about them!" he said. "Get out of here!"

"This is a public place, and the records contained herein are public domain, so I don't have to leave!" she said, feeling every bit a ten-year-old schoolgirl. She said, "You don't have to talk to me, but you do have to show me any records I ask to see. I would like to see Otto Malfoy's death certificate, as well as Miriam Weasley's, if you have them, and then I would like to see both of their birth certificates, and if they married, I will see that certificate, too!"

"You insolent, stupid girl!" he said. "You will get out of here now, if you know what's good for you. Don't dig up things that are best left buried!"

Hermione was about to protest again, when Philip came running in the front room from the back. He said, "Hermione, please leave."

"NO! I have a right to know the truth!" she said.

"You have no rights!" the old man shouted.

Phillip took his great uncle's arm and tried to steer him toward the other room. He looked back at Hermione and said, "Tonight. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Tonight."

He left the room, with the old man in tow. She had no choice. She could only hope from Phillips enigmatic message that she would get some answers tonight.

She walked back to the village, but took a detour toward the little graveyard. She entered the little parish church that was on the property. There was no one around, so she sat in one of the pews to think. Someone was trying to hide things and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why. Her mind began to amble toward Draco, and the last time she had seen him before coming to stay in Devonshire. She closed her eyes for a moment, to remember the night of the picnic.

_Flashback:_

_The last of the fireworks died in the sky, leaving behind only remnants of smoke and haze. She sat up on the blanket with Draco beside her. Even in the dark, he could see that she was smiling, and he was doing the same. He felt like a boy on his first date. Only this wasn't his first date. In many ways, it was the last. He was getting married, to a woman he didn't love, and here was a woman he could love so easily. A woman he wanted to love. A woman he might already love, as crazy as that sounded. She was so close that he could reach out and touch her. He did. He reached out and pulled on a curl of her hair. He watched as it bounced back into place. She turned and looked at him. He was no longer smiling._

"_What's wrong?" she asked._

"_This is it, isn't it?" he asked._

"_This is what?" she questioned._

"_This is the end."_

"_Of the evening?" she asked for clarification, though she had a sinking feeling that he meant so much more._

"_Of us," he asked._

"_It doesn't have to be," she stated hopefully. "It could be the beginning, if you'd like. I know I would." She felt vulnerable placing her feelings out there for him to see, and possibly stomp on, or ridicule. However, she had to take a chance. She was tired of playing it safe. She was so tired._

"_Sure, it doesn't have to be the end," he said, lying through his teeth. "We could make a date, for instance. We could arrange to meet say, a week from tonight, at the pub down the street, and have a drink, or something." Lord, he knew he was pathetic. He couldn't keep such a date. He wanted to, but he couldn't. Why did he even suggest it? He leaned forward, placed his hand behind her head, and brought her face to his. He said, "It could be the beginning. I want a beginning with you. I want it more than words can say." He leaned forward, then back again, then forward a second time, and placed his lips lightly on hers, and it felt like heaven on earth. He could scarcely believe it was real. _

_It was over far too soon, when she leaned away, touched his face and said, "A week from tonight."_

_It was a date he never kept._

Hermione opened her eyes, and she felt the moisture on her cheek before she realized she was even crying. She remembered feeling very hurt that he never met her. Moreover, Otto never met Miriam. She knew it in her heart. In addition, she knew that in her story, Waring would never meet Miranda, as odd as that sounded, if she didn't find out the reasons behind why Draco didn't meet her and why Otto didn't met Miriam.

She stood up and went to the front of the little church. Behind the pulpit was a credenza of sorts. On top were candles and ornate religious symbols. She wondered what was beneath. She slid open one of the doors and saw many volumes of dusty old journals, large, bound with ribbons. On the outside were dates. She wondered if these were church records. She pulled out one and started to read, and sure enough, there were names of people who married, the dates of the marriages, and even better luck, births were recorded in the same journals. She made a decision. She would come back here tomorrow and try to find the journal that might contain the information she needed on Miriam and Otto.

She apparated directly back to the cottage. She dressed and changed for the masquerade. She felt nervous and apprehensive. Before she left she decided to floo Mr. Weasley.

He answered the floo and asked, "Hermione, what may I do for you?"

"I have a favour to ask," she said, "and it's sort of a big one."

"I'll do anything I can, what is it?" he asked back.

"It's about your aunt. I'm afraid I'm becoming a bit obsessed," she started, "but, when she died, did she leave any personal possessions, such as letters, behind?"

He didn't answer right away. When he did, he said, "You mean letters from Otto Malfoy?"

She gasped. "Yes."

"Yes, I still have them," he said.

She knew the ones she found at the cottage were false. She had felt it for a long time. She felt that the one letter that wasn't burnt in the fire was probably the only genuine letter, besides the ones that Mr. Weasley had. She said, "Did you ever read them?"

"I have to admit that I did not," he answered.

"Is there any possible way that I could read them? If you say no, I understand."

He smiled and said, "I'll send them to you tonight by Owl."

She smiled. "I won't be at the cottage, but just make sure the Owl finds me, okay?"

"I will, and Hermione, I hope you get the answers you're searching for, because I think you and Miriam both deserve to know the truth."

"Thank you, Mr. Weasley. I love you," she added.

That warmed his heart. He said, "And I love you, Hermione."

She would get her answers, even if she had to piece them together one by one, herself.

She apparated to the edge of the estate, just as all of the guests had started arriving. There must have been hundreds of people, all in costumes and masks, descending upon the great Carrington House. She plucked up all her courage, and started toward the main doors. When she walked inside the grand estate, she felt as if she was transported back into another era. She looked around for a familiar face, though all the faces were covered, and when she discovered no one familiar, she walked toward the ballroom, alone.

She entered and saw the receiving line. Even in masks, she recognized Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy. Mrs. Malfoy was holding Draco's son. She was smiling, beaming with pride. Mr. Malfoy also looked proud, even in a mask. The little boy's mother was in a beautiful silver gown with a jeweled tiara and a white jeweled mask. Even with her face partially covered, Hermione could tell she was beautiful.

She couldn't find Draco. She suddenly felt this was a mistake. She felt out of place here. She didn't belong with the pureblood elites like the Malfoys. It wasn't that she felt she wasn't as good as they were, because she did. She just didn't feel comfortable around them. She wondered if Draco had told his parents about them yet. She wondered if they would accept her, now that they had a grandchild from another woman. She wasn't even certain she had a real place in Draco's life, not now that he had a son. The boy's mother, even if she was a Muggle, looked more at home and at ease than Hermione felt.

She started to back up when she heard music start. She decided to slip back through the doors unnoticed, go back to the cottage, and wait for the letters. Maybe if she got her answers about Otto and Miriam, she would find her answer regarding her and Draco, because she was suddenly unsure of their future.

She continued to walk backwards, until she felt something solid behind her. She felt an arm go around her waist. She turned suddenly. Before her was a man, in all black dress robes, white blond hair that reached his shoulders, and a black mask. The man smiled and said, "I've been waiting for you, Miriam." He took her in his arms and started to spin around the dance floor with her. She felt safe and happy, and knew that her earlier misgivings about not belonging were unfounded, as long as she was in his arms.

As they continued to spin around and around, the crowd began to part. Hermione smiled and said, "I've waited a lifetime for you too, Otto." She glanced over his shoulder for the briefest moments, and she saw a concerned Draco, his mask in his hand, staring at her. Startled, Hermione looked back to the face of the man dancing with her, and then back toward Draco. She pushed away from his chest, though he still held her tight, and she reached for Draco's hand as she spun by him. He started to run toward her when she yelled out his name. She pulled off her mask, and it slipped through her fingers as the man disapparated with her on the spot.

Draco reached the mask as it fell to the floor, and Hermione and the strange man disappeared.

_Coming up: Two Sons and Two Sisters:_


	18. 18 Two Sons and Two Sisters

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 18: Two Sons and Two Sisters:**

She was there one minute and gone the next. Draco ran to the spot where she was standing just as her mask fell down to the floor. He bent to pick it up, looked around, and screamed, "HERMIONE!" It seemed that everyone in the ballroom stood frozen in time, confused and curious. Lucius ran up to his son, heard the urgency in his voice, and his heart went out to him. He asked, "Who disappeared with Miss Granger?"

Draco threw the mask back on the floor and said, "You'll think I'm crazy, but it looked like your uncle Otto."

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Hermione opened her eyes, still feeling faint from the side-a-long apparition. She pushed away from the man who held her arm and looked around. They were back at Barlow's cottage: a cottage where she had placed numerous wards. A place where no one should have been able to apparate to, save for her and Draco, and apparently this masked man.

She tried to draw her wand from her pocket, but he reached for her arm, and held her hand tightly. He said, "Don't do anything you will regret, Miriam."

"I'm not Miriam," she said hastily.

"Then why do you look like her?" he asked. He let go of her arm, and she backed away from him. She could instantly tell that this man, who looked like what she imagined Otto Malfoy would look like, was not here to hurt her.

She asked, "May I ask you one thing?"

He laughed and said, "Only one? I imagine before the evening's done, you will ask a lot from me, but go on, ask your question."

"How is you were able to enter this cottage with me?"

"There's a charm placed above the threshold that admits all heirs of Miriam and Otto's. A round emblem with a snake and a lion. I'm an heir of theirs. I'm not Otto, but I'm sure you already know that, don't you, Miriam?" He smiled.

"Then you must know that I'm not Miriam," she said back.

His smile vanished, but then he said, "Of course you're not."

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Lucius placed his hand on his son's arm and said, "Otto has been dead for decades, Draco. That man may have resembled Otto, but it couldn't have been him."

Draco turned toward his father and spat, "Let me ask you this!" He turned in a circle, frantic and excited. "Doesn't this house hold powerful protection charms or not?"

"You know it does," Lucius spat back. "The wards on this house can only be breeched by a Malfoy."

"Then how could anyone disapparate away with her, unless they were a Malfoy?" Draco deduced.

A low hum started over the crowd, which soon turned to a loud murmur as everyone questioned everyone else as to what was happening. Draco began to bark orders to the staff that no one was to enter, and no one was to leave. He told his father, "If it wasn't a Malfoy who took her, then the person couldn't have left the house or grounds with her, and it makes sense that they could only apparate to somewhere else inside the house. He must still have her here somewhere."

Lucius saw concern come over Draco, which he had never seen before. When he told his parents that morning that he was in love with the Muggle-born best friend of Harry Potter, Lucius was less than pleased, but in this moment, watching his son worry and fret over the witch, Lucius knew two things…his son loved the woman, and Lucius had to get her back for him.

Lucius took over for his son. He told people to move aside. He formed a search team to investigate the gardens outside, just in case they were on the grounds. He formed another search party to canvas the inside of the house. "Bar the doors! No one leaves or enters this house!" Narcissa took their grandson, Thomas, up to the nursery. The boy's mother, Candace, who didn't seem at all pleased, slipped down a long narrow hallway that led from the ballroom to the conservatory, and then outside to the greenhouse beyond that. The appearance of this man, and then the disappearance of Hermione Granger, put a serious wrench in her plans. She had to tell her partner in crime of the current events of the evening.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hermione backed away from the man in the silver mask. He seemed to be frowning at her and he repeated, "You're not Miriam, I know that."

"You're right, I'm not." She took two steady breaths and then said, "My name is Hermione Granger."

He smiled at that, and removed his mask. He said, "I know that."

Hermione looked shocked when she saw the man's face. She rushed up to him and pushed him as hard as she could. She said, "What the hell is happening here, Phillip Cranston?"

"Sit down and I'll try to explain," he pleaded.

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Candace ran through the conservatory and down a path outdoors to the greenhouse. She walked over to a dormant fountain in the middle of the dark glass structure and shouted, "Are you here?"

Another woman walked around a statue of a woman with a large urn by the top of the fountain. She said, "What's going on? Why are you here so soon? You weren't supposed to meet me until tonight. Where's Hermione Granger?"

"There's been a change in plans," she said. "Someone took her."

"Took her where?" the other woman asked.

"I've no idea, but Draco said that no one could take her out of this house unless they were of Malfoy blood," Candace explained.

"This is complicated," the woman by the fountain, said. "If it's Phillip, then you realize this means he lied to us, don't you."

"If it was him, then he did more than lie," Candace said to the other woman.

"Go back to the ballroom, before they discover that you've gone. Get your son. We may need to use him for collateral now, instead of Granger."

"I won't use my son!" Candace said.

"You'll do what I say," the other woman barked. "You wouldn't even have a son with Draco if it wasn't for all of my hard work! This plan has to go on without a hitch. We paved the way to make sure that your son is the only heir by hiding all evidence of Miriam and Otto's child, so we will not let our hard work go to waste. Now go get your son!"

"Mrs. Malfoy ran off with him, anyway," Candace said.

"Damn," the other woman said. "Well, we'll just have to get him from her." The other woman walked toward the door that led to the conservatory and said, "I wonder if the wards still permit me to enter the house? I wonder if I'll be able to disapparate with the baby? After all, my divorce is final, but yet, I still have the last name of Malfoy."

Candace looked at her sister Claire, Draco's ex-wife, and said, "Where are you thinking of going?"

"I'll take Thomas with me. It's probably better if you aren't involved, after all, they don't even know we're sisters, and they think you're a Muggle."

"Please, can't we do this without using my son?" Candace asked again.

"If everything had worked the way I wanted, I would be the one with Draco's son, and we would have all the clout we needed. We would want for nothing. We would be set for life, with an endless supply of money, and power galore, but since I couldn't get pregnant, we used you, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let you ruin this for me!" Claire walked up to her sister and slapped her hard.

Candace held her cheek and started to cry. Claire said, "Hermione Granger will not marry Draco! You will! Moreover, I swear, no one will ever know about the marriage of Miriam and Otto. Morrison Cranston assured me that no one but him knew of the marriage, and we've destroyed all other evidence! Don't ruin things now by being weak!"

"What if Phillip knows?"

"He doesn't!" Claire shouted. "I know he doesn't know anything."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Phillip sat down at the table, removed his long blond wig and placed it on the chair beside him. He pushed out the chair at the end of the table and motioned for Hermione to sit down. "Sit down, and I'll explain everything I can to you, but the truth is, I'm somewhat limited to what I'm at liberty to say, so you need to piece most of this together yourself."

"First, don't be frightened, for I'll never hurt you, Hermione," Phillip started. "I want to help. I've tried to help all along. I tried to show you the truth without actually coming out and telling you. I've fabricated some things, but only things that would give you clues about Miriam and Otto. I wasn't at liberty to tell you things outright, and I'm still not, because of a complicated curse that was placed on my family by my great uncle Morrison, but here," he reached in his pocket and pulled out some letters. "These arrived for you at Carrington House shortly before I took off with you. They are Miriam's letters from Otto, sent to you from Mr. Weasley. I intercepted them. They are the real ones, not the fictional ones that I wrote and planted here before you moved in. And although I've read them all before, when I was younger, and I tried to recreate them accurately with the fake ones, I believe you'll find these ones more enlightening, and you'll find the truth within, if you read them, I promise."

He leaned back in his chair as she reached across for the letters. She asked, "The letters that Draco and I read before, the ones that were burnt on the beach, were fakes after all?" She had already surmised as much, but she wanted him to confirm her suspicions.

"Yes, but I only recreated them because I knew the real ones were safely with Mr. Weasley, and I couldn't think of another way for you to discover the truth about Otto and Miriam. I wanted you to discover they were fake, and I wanted someone else to think that they were real." Phillip quickly laid his hand lightly on top of hers as she touched the first letter. He withdrew it just as quick.

She opened the first one to read, but before she could read the first letter, a piece of parchment fell out of the envelope. She leaned over in her chair and picked it up from the floor. She placed it on the table, beside the first letter, and smoothed it out. It was a birth certificate.

Phillip leaned over, sighed with satisfaction, and said, "What luck." She looked at him and he was smiling. He said, "There's your proof, or your truth rather, and it was in the very first letter. A real birth certificate, not a forged one. "

She looked back at the birth certificate. She read aloud, "Albert Edward Weasley Malfoy, born April 1, 1932." She looked at Phillip and he nodded toward her, to encourage her to read further. She read, "Born in London, mother: Miriam Augusta Weasley Malfoy, father: Otto Fletcher Malfoy." She studied the old piece of parchment for several more minutes and then asked, "Who was Albert Edward Malfoy?"

"My father," Phillip answered. Then he said, "The death certificate you saw last week at the hall of record, the one for Miriam, saying she died March 1, 1932, was a lie, and fabricated by my uncle, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you that at the time. It's time for the truth, Hermione."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Flashback:_

_The fireworks had ended, and almost all of the guests had left. Draco remained outside in Theo's back garden. He had must made a date to meet Hermione Granger, and he knew he would never be able to keep that date. He was set to marry soon, a marriage that he never wanted. A marriage that would be in name only. A marriage to a woman he despised, solely because __**she was pregnant**__ with his child, or at least she claimed she was._

_Theo came up to Draco and said, "Party's over, mate."  
_

"_I feel like my life is over," Draco waned._

"_I know," Theo commiserated. He patted Draco's shoulder and said, "You and Granger got pretty friendly tonight. Perhaps you could marry Claire, but have something on the side with Granger."_

_Draco was appalled that Theo would say such a thing. Hermione wasn't that sort of girl! Then he realized that it was something he himself would have said if the places were reversed. Theo didn't mean anything by it. He gave Theo a weak smile and said, "Do you mind if I just stay out here for a while?"_

"_Sure, whatever. I'm going to go clean up inside. Come and tell me goodbye before you leave." Theo walked toward the house._

_Draco walked over to a green wooden table and sat down on the top. He looked up at the clear, summer, night sky and said, "Why can't I have someone like her?"_

"_Like who?" came a voice from behind him._

_He shut his eyes. If it was a dream, he didn't want it to end. If it was real, then he didn't want it to end, either. He licked his dry lips and opened his eyes. He felt her delicate touch on his back. Her hand felt cold against the cotton of his shirt. She moved her hand deftly from his back to his arm. Draco reached up for her hand and took it in his. He kissed her fingertips. _

"_I thought you left with Potter and Weasley," Draco said, still not looking at her. If he looked at her again, he might not ever be able to leave her._

"_I did, but I left my shawl," she explained. She climbed up on the table and sat so close to him that her thigh touched his. He looked over at her, and in the moonlight, he could still make out the little cherries on her dress. He reached over with his index finger and traced one of the cherries, as the material clung to her leg. She leaned her face against his shoulder. She sighed._

_He brought his hand from her thigh up to cup her cheek. He finally looked at her. He said, "I'm going to kiss you, Granger." It seemed only fair to warn her. It was a goodbye kiss. It was a kiss of regret and remorse. It was a kiss of longing. He leaned toward her, brought her face closer to his, and placed his mouth across hers. He applied a bit of pressure, then a bit more, then he opened her mouth with his, just a fraction, and he melted into her. Her hand came up to his face. They sat next to each other, her hand on his cheek, his hand on hers, and they kissed for the briefest moment and then it was over._

_He put his forehead next to hers and said, "I wish…"_

"_What?"_

"_Nothing," he said._

_She hopped off the table, smiled at him and said, "Don't forget our date."_

_He stood up and watched her run back through the house and as she reached the backdoor, she turned, smiled and waved. He held up his hand, and it remained in the air until she disappeared inside. Then he brought it down through his hair, and clenched his hand into a fist at his side, and disapparated away._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_**Miriam waited for Otto to show up at the cliffs, but he never did. She waited all night. The next morning, the galls clamored loudly as they flocked to the beach below the cliff. She was glad for the company, frankly. She was tired, so very tired, and she had never felt more alone in her life. **_

_**Why didn't he come? He said that he would. They were to marry. She was going to tell him some important news before they did, but now neither of those things was likely to happen. They would never marry and she would never get to tell him about their baby. She looked at the swell of her belly, and she knew that she was really and truly alone. She would have to raise their baby by herself. It would be difficult, but at least it was a pureblood, even if it was to be a bastard. She would go back to London to have the baby.**_

_**She packed up all of her belongings from the cottage, and placed them all in one small suitcase. She took his letters and placed them on top. They were the only thing she had from him. She stood on the small, stone porch, to await a cab. She didn't know where she was going to go, so she couldn't apparate. She would have a cab take her to the train station, and she would decided from there where she would go. She could always go home, but she wasn't sure what her parents would think about their unmarried daughter, being pregnant, by a Malfoy no less.**_

_**She looked back at her little cottage by the sea. It was a gift from him. He gave it to her shortly after they met. It was before they were even in love. She was hesitant to accept such a generous gift from such a powerful man, but in the end, accept it she did, and she would never regret a day that she spent with him, or a day she spent here at her beloved cottage. She only hoped she would be able to return someday, to her cottage by the sea.**_

_**She smiled when she looked at the little insignia of the snake and the lion that was on the round emblem above the door. That was Otto's idea. It was a symbol of their love…a former Gryffindor and a former Slytherin, but it was also so much more. It was a symbol of the protection spell he had placed on this cottage. Only them or someday their heirs could enter, along with anyone whom they might love. It kept her safe from his family. She didn't know what they might do if they found out she was with child. They might kill her and the baby, or they might take the baby away. Perhaps they already did something untold to Otto.**_

_**She shivered just thinking about it. The car arrived and she picked up her one suitcase, which contained all of her worldly possessions and she said, "I'll be back one day."**_

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Draco and the staff of Carrington House searched every room and outbuilding for Hermione. They couldn't find her. Finally, his father suggested that they let all of the guests leave.

Draco hung his head and sat on the grand staircase of the large entry hall, watching as all the partygoers left out the large front doors and he sighed. He lost her once; he couldn't and wouldn't lose her again. Lucius walked up to him and said, "Come inside son."

Draco stood up and said, "Has anyone seen Phillip?" He didn't know why he didn't realize that his friend, and the caretaker of the estate, was missing until now. He said, "Father, I have one last place to look! I'll be back." He stood up suddenly and dashed to the door.

"Be careful son," Lucius said.

Draco started to disapparate, but then said, "One more thing, father. Keep my son safe. I have a funny feeling. Trust me on this, but don't even let his mother alone with him."

"What can she do?" Lucius asked. "It's not like she can disapparate with him. She's a Muggle."

"I just have a strange feeling about all of this," Draco said. His father nodded and Draco left, and he apparated right to the back porch of Barlow's cottage. He looked in the window and he saw Phillip and Hermione inside. Hermione was encased in Phillip's arms, and she was crying.

_Coming up: Love and Jealousy_


	19. 19 Love and Jealousy

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 19: Love and Jealousy:**

A rush of jealousy surged through Draco. He wasn't sure why they were embracing, but he was jealous that Phillip was comforting her as she cried. It should be his arms around her, not another man's arms. He took a step back, leaned down, watched closer, and noticed that Phillip was in the costume of the man who disappeared with Hermione. He was about to burst through the door when he saw them part from their embrace. Hermione was holding a piece of parchment, which she folded back up and placed inside an envelope. Then as if on cue, Hermione turned to the window, looked outside, saw Draco's silhouette in the moonlight, and she called his name from within the small stone cottage.

Hermione stood up, walked around the table, and waited for Draco to enter. Philip stood up as well, but he quickly turned around and disapparated away just as Draco ran in the back door toward the pair. Hermione hadn't even noticed Phillip's disappearance…she was in Draco's arms so fast that it shocked him.

"Where did you go?" he asked her.

"I know the truth! I know everything!" she said.

"What truth? The truth about what?" he asked.

"I know the truth as to why you married Claire, I know the truth about your son and his mother, and more importantly, I know the truth about Miriam and Otto."

Draco parted from her and said, "Start at the beginning."

_Draco and Claire:_

"_You lied about being pregnant!" Draco bellowed from across the dining room table. "I know you lied! You haven't even been to a Healer!"_

"_What did you do, have me followed today?" she yelled back._

"_Yes! That's exactly what I did! And the fellow that followed you said you went shopping, not to St. Mungos! Tell me! Are you pregnant or not?" Draco rushed up to her and pulled her from her chair._

"_FINE!" she yelled, removing herself from his grasp and running to the other side of the table. "I'm not now, nor have I ever been pregnant!"_

"_Then you lied!"_

"_It would appear so," she spat back sarcastically._

"_To get me to marry you!" he concluded._

_She was quiet. It was over and she was caught like a child eating sweets before dinner, and she had no contingency plans. She had hoped to become pregnant, but it was difficult since her husband refused to share her bed, so instead, she had been trying to hold on to the façade as long as she could. She was a desperate woman. She had hoped to feign a miscarriage, and that way, Draco would never know that she lied about being pregnant in the first place. She even hoped he would offer her some compassion, and then perhaps, his love._

"_Why did you lie to me?" he repeated. "Was it solely to get me to marry you?"_

"_Yes," she said softly._

"_Why?" Draco asked, sitting down in her empty seat. She sat beside him. "And don't say it's because you love me. You don't, and you know I don't love you. We only went out for four weeks, and when I tried to break up with you, you told me this monumental lie. You ruined my life!"_

_She stood and screeched, and the sound that came out of her was a mix of fury, hurt, and despair. "I wanted your money!" she finally shouted. "There! That's the truth! I wanted to have your child, have you marry me, and then have your money, or at least enough money that I could live comfortably if you ever divorced me, because I knew you would never abandon your child!"_

"_But you were never pregnant?" he asked, his anger returning._

"_No! I tried hard to get pregnant the whole time we were dating, but it never happened, and then you decided to break up with me, so I had to lie," she said, trying to place the blame on him in some bizarre twist. "I thought I would get you to marry me quickly, and then get pregnant on our honeymoon or something, but you never even touched me on our honeymoon. We've had sex twice since we married eight months ago, and both times I had to get you drunk to get you interested!"_

_Draco stood up and picked up a crystal wine goblet. He threw it across the room so that it shattered against a wall. "That's our relationship! Shattered and broken and beyond repair! You will divorce me! I'll give you some money and this house, but then I never want to see you again. You cost me so much! You cost me the possibility of having a real relationship with someone."_

"_Who, Hermione 'The Mudblood' Granger?" she snarled._

_Draco was shocked that she knew. Before he could ask, she said, "You talk in your sleep, Draco!" She rushed up to him and slapped his face. _

_He grabbed her arm and said, "You get that one free, but the next one will cost you dearly."_

_She pulled away from his arm and said, "I'll fight you tooth and nail! I'll drag this divorce out for years! She'll forget about you by the time you're free of me, and then you'll be all alone!"_

Hermione started the story from Phillips recollections, which were told to him by Draco, but Draco filled in the holes. It was already a story he knew well. Hermione placed her arms around his waist, looked up at him, and said one thing, "I'm so sorry."

"Now you know why I didn't meet you after the picnic at Theo's," Draco explained. "I should have told you. No, what I should have done was leave you alone that day, but you were so sweet, bright, and beautiful and a ray of light compared to her, and I was drawn to you like a moth to a flame. I hope you forgive me. She did drag the divorce out for years. That's why I never tried to contact you again. I thought it was too late."

She smiled at him, pressed herself against his body, tilted her head up and kissed his chin, and then his mouth. "It's never too late, and I love you."

Draco took her hand and led her to the little loveseat. He said, "Now what did you say about Claire and Candace? What did Phillip tell you about them?"

_Claire and Candace:_

"_Claire, are you here?" Candace called out as she apparated into the grand home that Claire once shared with her husband, Draco Malfoy._

_Claire had never revealed to Draco the fact that she had a younger sister. In fact, she never told him many things. She told him she was a pureblood, which she was, but only because her mother had an affair with a pureblood while married to her father, who was a Muggle born, and she was the result. Her mother's husband wasn't her father, so she conveniently never told Malfoy about her stepfather. Instead, she made him believe that her mother's former lover was also her mother's husband, since he was definitely her father. That way, she could be the pureblood that she really was._

_Since she never told them that her real father and her mother weren't married, she could hardly tell them she had a sister, who was a half blood. Now she was glad that she hadn't told anyone anything about Candace. Her plan would work out so much better this way._

_Claire walked in the foyer and saw her sister. "Nice of you to finally come! I sent you word two weeks ago that I needed to see you!" Claire accused._

"_I'm sorry, but I was in Paris," Candace answered. "You know that I've been trying to break into the Muggle modeling industry."_

"_I know, and that's why I wanted to talk to you! My ex-husband has been in Paris, too," Claire answered._

"_How is that pertinent to me?" Candace asked._

_Claire smiled and explained her plan to Candace. She told Candace that they would never want for anything again, that their money problems would be over, and all she had to do was pretend to be a Muggle, act as if she didn't know Claire,__let alone that they were related__ and strike up a relationship with Draco Malfoy, her ex-husband. Then, she would make sure that she became pregnant. In fact, they would time everything perfectly so that it did happen. Then Draco would want to marry her, to give his child a name and to assure that it wasn't a bastard, since it would be the Malfoy heir._

_Candace thought her sister had gone mad. She refused to help her, told her she was desperate; she didn't see why she had to pretend to be a Muggle. Furthermore, she was on the verge of a famous modeling career, and a baby would ruin everything._

_Her sister smiled, held up a piece of parchment, and said, "You owe me."_

"_You would blackmail your own sister!" she asked back._

_Claire smiled and said, "I would do much more than that."_

"_Why?" Candace asked. "You seem to be living comfortably here. You seem to have enough money. Anyway, even if I get Draco Malfoy to get me pregnant, I don't want to marry him, and how will my marrying him give you security and money?"_

"_First, I am comfortable, but for how long? I signed a stupid prenuptial agreement, and my money will soon run out. If I had a child, it would never end. You will have his child, have his money, and take care of your dear sister in the style in which she has become accustomed, or everyone will find out your secret. I'll tell everyone that you killed your first husband, and you will go to prison for the rest of your life."_

"_But I didn't kill him!" she shrieked. "You were the one that made the poison!"_

"_And you fed it to him," Claire pointed out._

"_But I didn't know it was poison!" She was desperate now. She said, "I just wanted out of my marriage, I didn't tell you to kill my husband!"_

"_Well, the way I see it, no one will believe that. Now, I helped you and your future, and you will now help me," Claire stated calmly as if they were talking about the weather._

"_What if I don't even become pregnant?" Candace asked._

"_Are you kidding? You've already been pregnant twice and got rid of them! You'll have no problem," Claire snickered._

"_What if he doesn't offer marriage? He might be shy of that now, after what happened to you," Candace pointed out._

_Claire frowned. She hadn't thought of that. "You're right. Get pregnant, tell him that you want nothing from him, and I guarantee, after you have the baby, either his parents will make him do the right thing and marry you, or his own guilt will get to him and he'll marry you. We may even have to threaten to take his child away from him to get him to do the noble thing, but I promise you that Draco Malfoy would rather marry you than never see his child again. If we're lucky, you'll have a son. That would be even better."_

Hermione told Draco the whole conversation. "How do you know about their plans?"

"From Phillip. He found out from Candace. They've become involved, for want of a better word, and she confided everything to him. She even confided in him that they had a plot to kidnap me tonight, and kill me, so that's why he took me away."

"Kill you?" Draco asked, shocked.

"Yes, Claire seems to think that I'm in the way, and that you'll never marry her sister now," Hermione explained. "She also thinks that we discovered the truth about the real Malfoy heir, and that I was writing a thinly veiled fictional account of Miriam and Otto's story, so since I know too much, I need to be killed. Phillip has been working hard to reveal certain truths to the sisters about the fact that your son may not be the rightful Malfoy heir, thinking that would stop their plan to ruin you and hurt me. However, so far, they have spoiled everything he's tried to prove, and in fact, he thinks he might have caused more trouble than good."

"What do you mean that my son isn't the rightful heir?" he asked with a frown.

She laced her fingers with his and said, "Phillip is under a vow, or really, a curse, that was placed on his family by his great Uncle Morrison Cranston never to reveal the truth about his Phillip's father and their true linage. He has gone to some pretty elaborate means to reveal the truth to us; all the while his uncle and the evil Claire have been trying to make us believe the opposite."

Draco shook his head and said, "I'm so confused. What is the truth and what isn't?"

"Phillip doesn't really know the truth himself, but he knows what his uncle has led everyone to believe, and he feels that the truth is that Miriam and Otto _did_ marry eventually. Phillip assumes that he didn't meet her the night he was supposed to because your Great Grandfather and your Grandfather stopped him, but he eventually found her and they married, and they had a child, a son. Phillip's father is their son. I saw the birth certificate tonight, and he had the Malfoy name."

"Then my son isn't the true heir?" he asked, already knowing the truth.

"Well, perhaps not, but Phillip claims no one ever has to know that. He doesn't care about that." She walked over to the table and picked up the real letters from Otto to Miriam. Then, without telling him where she was going, she went to her bedroom to get the one true letter she had from Otto. She went to the little room upstairs and got Otto's letters from Miriam. Draco was waiting for her at the end of the stairs.

"These are all of their real letters. I think we need to read them together, and in order, and then we will know their truth. We'll know what really happened to them. I already know some of it from a couple of letters I read this evening, and it's a tragic love story, Draco, it really is. In addition, Phillip went to get some birth and marriage records that are stored in the little church near the cemetery. He'll be back shortly."

"Why is Phillip helping us?" Draco asked.

"Because he's a man in love, too. He loves Candace and he hates Claire, and he also is a very good friend to you, Draco," she said.

Suddenly, Draco said, "My son! I have to go make sure my son is safe first, and that Candace is watched and that she can't leave! Will you be safe here while I'm gone?"

She nodded and said, "Phillip said there's a protection on this cottage and only Malfoy men and the women they love can enter, unless the other people are invited in, so I should be safe."

He smiled, kissed her forehead and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. "I'll be right back after I'm sure Thomas is okay, and then we'll sit down and read these letters together, and the mystery will finally be over."

He popped away and Hermione went to her bedroom to change. She dressed in long white nightgown with a cotton robe, and she sat on the bed with all the letters around her. She could hardly wait to finish piecing together the remnants of Miriam and Otto's story. She wanted to wait for Draco, but she didn't think it would hurt to go ahead and put the letters in chronological order, so that was what she was doing when she heard the 'popping' sound of someone apparating into the cottage. She scurried off the bed and ran to the bedroom door, the letters in her hand.

She skidded to a stop and said, "What are you doing here?" The real question was, how SHE got in the cottage, since Phillip told her that only Malfoy men and the women they loved could enter without invitation! Hermione knew that her wand was in the bedroom. She dropped the letters and ran toward the dresser, but Claire stunned her before she could take two steps.

Claire bent down, picked up the letters, and stuffed them in a satchel she had around her shoulders. Then she took Hermione's arm in her hand and said, "It's time for you to meet the same fate as the heroine, Miranda, met in your story, Miss Granger."

She disapparated with Hermione just as Draco had entered the room.

"NO!" he yelled as he watched them slip away. Why did people keep taking Hermione away from him?

_Coming up: The story of Miriam and Otto._


	20. 20 Miriam and Otto

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 20: Miriam and Otto:**

**_Otto Malfoy had come to the county of Devon to get away from his family. He was staying at Carrington House, one of his family's many homes. He was tired of the constant need to be perfect all the time. There was so much uncertainty in their world, most of it regarding blood purity, money, and status. Although he was a Malfoy, and proud of his heritage, occasionally he wanted to just be 'Otto'._**

**_He walked along the cobblestone sidewalks, the early summer wind picking up around him, and his hat blew right off his head. He turned to retrieve it when he saw a beautiful woman with long, flowing red hair standing behind him. She bent down to pick up his hat first, and when she stood up to hand it to him, her hair whipped around her face._**

**_Otto approached her and held out his hand. She handed him his hat, he reached for his hat with one hand, and with the other he did something completely out of character and undeniably inappropriate. He pushed her blowing hair out of her face._**

**_It was a beautiful face, after all. She seemed taken back by his forwardness, she took a step backwards, and she promptly fell off the curb._**

**_He caught her before she could hit the pavement. Still holding her around the waist, one hand on her waist, one hand on her back, her body tilted at an awkward angle, he said, "Hello, my name is Otto. What's yours?"_**

**_She reached up for his arm, to give herself purchase, since she was certain he would drop her on her backside at any moment, and she said, "Would you mind helping me to stand first? Then I'll tell you my name."_**

**_He let out a little laugh and he smiled. His shoulder-length blond hair and his silver-gray eyes struck her immediately. In fact, if a man could be described as beautiful, then she would say that the man in front of her was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She also knew immediately who he must be. He had to be a Malfoy. She would have known it even if he didn't tell her his last name. Those physical traits weren't common, no more than hers were._**

**_He lifted her to stand and said, "I apologize." He held out his hand and said, "Let's start again. Hello, it's nice to meet you. My name is Otto Malfoy."_**

**_He was a Malfoy. She placed her hand in his and he held it tight. She said, in a voice barely above a whisper, "I have to go. It was nice to meet you." She tried to run away, but he held onto her hand._**

**_"Wait," he said. She turned back around and looked at their joined hands. "What's your name?"_**

**_"Miriam," she said evasively. She wouldn't tell him her last name. Malfoys and Weasleys didn't like each other, and for some odd reason, she didn't want this stranger not to like her._**

**_"Do you have a last name, Miriam?" he asked._**

**_"Probably," she said. He laughed at that, loud and boisterously. She continued to walk down the street, and he took up step beside her._**

**_"Do you mean for me to guess your last name?" he asked, although he already had an idea who she was. She turned her face quickly toward his, and her hair again whipped around her face. The wind, combined with the fact that her hair was waist length and loose, was a brutal combination. She gathered her long tresses in her hand and turned back around, and crossed the street._**

**_He was right on her heels. "Fine, don't tell me your name. I'll figure it out," Otto claimed._**

**_She tried not to smile as she turned to face him, but she couldn't help it. This Malfoy wasn't like others she had met or heard about, so she decided to play along. "Good luck with that," she said._**

**_He said, "You don't believe I could, do you?"_**

**_"No, I believe you are probably a very gifted seer," she said with a smile._**

**_He pointed toward a large stone windowsill, under an awning, by a shoppe window, and he said, "Shall we?" She sat down and he sat next to her. She had on a pretty, brown skirt and a crème coloured shirt, with no wizarding robes on top. Instead, she had on a tartan jacket, made up of muted browns, greens, and burgundies. He had on traditional wizard robes, and he suddenly felt overdressed._**

**_He said, "Let me ask you three questions, and then I'll tell you your last name," he said. "However, you must promise to answer them truthfully."_**

**_She grinned and said, "As long as one of them isn't 'what is your last name,' then I agree to your terms."_**

**_He already knew her last name, so that wasn't going to be one of the questions, but he acted affronted, hands over heart, and with a wounded look on his face he said, "You wound me, Miss. I would never do anything underhanded like that. Now to begin." He reached over for her hand. She moved back a bit, but had nowhere to go on the windowsill. He took her hand in his, and turned it around, palm side up. He traced the lines of her hand with his index finger. Miriam had never felt anything more erotic or passionate, but then again, she was quite the innocent. That being the case, she looked around to be sure no one was watching. They weren't. She couldn't believe he was being so bold and that she was letting him. What must he think of her?_**

**_He looked up to her face, and his smile slipped away because she was no longer smiling. He was being too bold. He let go of her hand and tried to smile, so that she would smile back. She didn't. Instead, she looked afraid. He cursed his last name, for probably the one hundredth time in his life. He didn't want to be judged by his name. He wanted to be judged by his character, and for some reason, he didn't want Miriam to think poorly of him._**

**_She was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. She had long, dark auburn hair, green eyes that were almost aqua, and she was tall and thin and her complexion was as clear as a starless night sky. He settled back against the window and said, "Never fear, dear Miriam, I won't touch you again until you tell me that I can. In fact, let that be my reward. If I guess your name, I shall get to hold your hand. Is that agreeable?"_**

**_At first, she thought he was going to demand a kiss, but he merely wanted to hold her hand. She liked it when this stranger held her hand. He was handsome, tall, and probably the best-looking man she had ever met. He was also a Malfoy, and she knew that her father, her brother, and her uncles would never approve, but that was why she was here…to get away from all of that nonsense. She nodded her agreement._**

**_She said, "Go on, question one, if you please."_**

**_Instead of asking a question right away, he studied her again. She was alluring and bedazzling. He wanted to reach out and touch her once more, but instead he said, "Question one, are you married?"_**

**_She wondered how that would help him guess her name, but she answered quickly. "There are no attachments in my life, formal or otherwise."_**

**_He smiled. He wouldn't have to waste question two asking her if she was in love or engaged. He asked, "Two, how long are you to be in Devonshire?"_**

**_"Indefinitely. I need a place to stay yet, but I already obtained a job at one of the resorts. I'm running away from home, don't you know?" She leaned toward him when she said that last part, as if she was revealing a secret to him._**

**_She said it playfully, so he playfully said in return, "You picked a good place to run away to, and I should know, because I too have come here to run away." They both leaned away from each other at the same time. She suddenly blushed. He said, "Question three, will you let me take you out to dinner tonight, Miriam Weasley?"_**

**_She opened her mouth; shocked that he had guessed her last name, but then she decided that her familiar attributes were probably as pronounced as his, so instead, she gave his arm a playful slap. She blushed again, and he reached for her hand. She looked up into his eyes. He said, "Remember, my reward for guessing your name was to hold your hand. Now, where do you want to go to dinner?" Then he took her hand in his._**

**_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_**

**_They spent the entire summer in each other's company. By the end of the summer, she had moved into a small cottage that was high on a cliff, and was on the outskirts of his estate. He said it was the only part of the estate that was exclusively his, and he gave it to her._**

**_She wrote to her parents and told them that she was staying on throughout the year._**

**_He wrote his parents and said that he might never come home._**

**_They fell in love. It was inevitable. Theirs was an innocent love for a long time. He knew that she was a virgin, and she would never make love to a man unless she was married, and he fully intended to marry her. A year to the day of their first meeting, all of that was ruined when his parents came to Carrington House for the summer._**

**_He explained to her that he wouldn't be able to see her as much, but that they should write to each other daily. He promised that he would tell his parents and brother about her, but it would take some time. He set up an enchantment on the cottage so that only he or she could enter. He placed a small emblem over the door, a serpent and a lion, to represent him and her, and to protect the cottage from others. He decided to extend the wards to permit entrance to only them and someday their descendent, because after all, they might want to live in this little cottage after they were married. It might be a necessity, since his father was certain to cut him off completely, and he would be penniless. Well, better to be penniless and happy, than rich and alone._**

**_She waited for him patiently that summer. He wrote her daily. Finally, one day, he met her on the beach. She was sitting in the sand, watching the evening tide break, and she heard him approach. They ended up making love that night. It shouldn't have happened, but it did. He promised he would marry her. He wanted nothing more. He told her he would meet her on the first of September, the end of summer, on the bluff, and they would apparate away and get married._**

**_She waited an agonizing month for the first of September to come. By the end of the month, she knew she was with child, but she didn't care. She was to be married, and she was certain Otto would be happy that she was pregnant. When the first came, she stood on the bluff that faced the sea, to the right of her cottage and waited. He never came._**

**_She wrote to him. The owl always returned her letter. It was as if Otto had fallen off the edge of the world. She decided to try to send it one last time, and that time it was never returned to her. Still, he never wrote back. Miriam thought she could raise the child on her own. She thought she could go back home and be accepted. Her child was a pureblood, after all, but without a marriage between its parents, under wizarding laws, it would never be recognized as an heir to the Malfoy fortune._**

**_Then she had a change of heart. She couldn't do that to this child. Her family and the Malfoys would never accept it, or even worse, they might fight over it. Her decision made, she moved to London by herself, had her baby on April 1, 1932. She named him Albert Edward Weasley Malfoy. She gave it his father's name, even though they never married, and when she was able to, she moved back to the cottage with the child. The only person ever to know the truth was the Parrish Elder. He registered her son's birth in the church records, and then, to her sorrow, he convinced her to give the child up for adoption. It was a dark and treacherous time, and he convinced her that the Malfoys would probably try to take the child away from her._**

**_She agreed. He found a family to adopt the baby. Their last name was Cranston. She stayed in the cottage all the rest of her days, so that she could be close to her son, and just in case Otto returned. Her son never knew of his mother. Otto never returned._**

_Present time_:

Claire disapparated with Hermione just as Draco had entered the room.

"NO!" he yelled as he watched them slip away. Why did people keep taking Hermione away from him?

He started to run down the little path that led from the cottage to the road, though he didn't even know where he was heading. Phillip and Candace apparated before his eyes. Draco pulled out his wand and said, "Where did she take Hermione?"

"Who?" Phillip asked.

"My ex-wife!"

"Claire took Hermione?" Candace asked.

Draco looked angry. He said, "Yes, your sister took my love! That's right, Phillip told Hermione, who told me, that you and Claire are sisters! How could you lie to me like that, Candace?"

Candace looked at Draco, then to Phillip. Phillip said, "Draco, sit down, we have a lot to tell you."

"There's no time! She has Hermione!" he yelled.

"There is time, and there are things you need to understand, the first being the story of Miriam and Otto, the real story." Phillip sat down on the steps of the cottage. With reluctance, Draco sat beside him, as Candace paced back and forth in the front garden.

Under the glare of the moon, Phillip revealed that Candace and Claire were sisters, which he had already told Hermione. He told Draco about Claire's plot for the Malfoy fortune. Then, he told him the story of Miriam and Otto, and all about their son. He told him that he really didn't know if Miriam and Otto ever married, but he knows that was what his uncle always led everyone to believe.

"How do you know the story of Miriam and Otto?" Draco asked wearily. He was still worried for Hermione.

"Because, my father was their son," Phillip answered plainly. "I told Hermione that, and I assume that she told you."

Draco was still shocked beyond words to hear Phillip admit this to him. He said, "Does Claire know this?"

Phillip shook his head in dismay and said, "No, and she doesn't know that she's really their granddaughter, either."

At this bit of news, Draco stood up, stunned and even Candace turned around and at the same time, they both asked Phillip, "What?"

_Coming up: Truth and Consequences:_


	21. 21 Truth and Consequences

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 21: Truths and Consequences:**

"Where are we going?" Hermione asked Claire. They were walking along a rocky path, which Hermione already knew led to the little graveyard. She had visited here with Phillip the day they found Miriam's 'fake' grave.

"You're going to find me the definitive proof, the last bit of evidence that I need to prove that Miriam Weasley and Otto Malfoy were married, and then you will destroy it for me. That way, my sister's son will be the rightful heir," the disturbed woman said. She pointed the end of her wand into Hermione's back and said, "Hurry up."

"Who's your sister? Who's her son?" Hermione asked, pretending to be in the dark, although Phillip had already told her the story.

"Candace! My sister is Candace and her son is Thomas!"

Hermione turned to face the woman and said, "Then let me put your unbalanced mind at ease and tell you that I already know that Thomas is the rightful heir. Miriam Weasley and Otto Malfoy never married, at least, not according to her letters. I know that goes against everything that Phillip believes, and you were led to believe, but I believe it is the truth."

"Don't lie to me, Mudblood! I know that you found some sort of proof that they married, besides those paintings and the letters, and you wanted to write that fictional account of their love affair! I know that you want to take Draco and his money away from us! I burned those paintings and those letters, because they proved that they **did** marry! Stop trying to manipulate things!" Claire screamed.

Hermione said, "Those letters you destroyed were forged by Phillip Cranston. The real letters were sent to me by Mr. Weasley tonight, and from what I've deduced from them, and from one real letter that I found in the beginning and that you didn't destroy, Otto never showed up the night they were to run off and marry. His letters, which Draco has, states pretty much the same thing. Something must have happened to Otto before they could marry. She was pregnant, but they never married."

"Why would Phillip forge those other letters?" Claire wondered aloud.

"I really don't know. He told me that he forged them to throw you off the track, but why, I don't know, especially since you don't want them to have been married, and the fake letters said that they were. He said that there was a curse, or charm, placed upon members of his family, and he was under that curse, therefore he could never tell the secret outright, but he tried to reveal things slowly to me. For the life of me, I don't really know to this day what he wanted me to believe, but it doesn't matter, because the secret's out."

"What secret?" Claire asked. She looked deranged.

"The secret that he's the grandchild of Miriam and Otto, because his father was their illegitimate child," Hermione told her.

The other woman screamed in frustration.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Draco rushed up to Phillip, pointed his wand under his chin and said, "Stop with the phony stories and lies and just tell me the truth, once and for all!"

Candace walked up to Phillip, took his hand, and said, "Tell him the truth. Tell me the truth, please."

Phillip looked defeated. He said, "I know the story of Otto and Miriam because it's my father's story, because as I just told you, he was their son. Nevertheless, you're right. I've been lying. I've been lying for so long, about so many things, that sometimes it's hard to tell the truth, but you deserve the truth, Malfoy, and so does Candace, Hermione, and little Thomas. Even Claire deserves to know the truth."

Phillip sat down on the bench outside the cottage and said, "Here's the whole truth. The one that I've concluded on my own, with no proof, yet I know it to be real. Yes, Miriam and Otto fell in love. Yes, their families discouraged their love. Yes, they were to meet secretly and were to marry. The day he was to meet her, my great uncle Morrison stopped him. There was a struggle, and your great uncle was killed. He was thrown off the bluff by the cottage, while waiting for Miriam, and Morrison buried the body at the graveyard, under another man's name. You see, Morrison loved Miriam too, although she didn't love him. It was one sided. He killed Otto before Miriam and he could meet and marry. They never married, but the only person to know that the marriage didn't happen was my great uncle."

"He blackmailed your grandfather and great-grandfather, Otto's brother and father. He ran the Hall of Records, and he forged a marriage certificate and then he forged a birth certificate for my father, to use them to blackmail the Malfoys, knowing that his real birth certificate was in London. Your grandfather didn't want a blood traitor to be the heir of the Malfoy fortunate, so my great uncle blackmailed him, and said that he would keep the child's identity and birthright a secret, for a price. Malfoy, your grandfather and great Uncle, Otto's brother, paid him for many years to keep a secret which was ultimately a lie."

"The reality is that the child was born out of wedlock, so therefore, according to Wizard law, he wouldn't have been recognized as the rightful heir anyway."

"How do you know all of this?" Candace asked, "And where does Claire fit into the equation?"

"Several years ago, I was helping my great-uncle in the Hall of Records, and I found a secret passageway underneath the building. There, deep inside this cavernous cellar, were the real records of their child, along with his adoptive records. It was my father. I went to my uncle, to ask him what the truth was. That was when he put the curse on the real records, which prevented me from ever sharing the truth to anyone. I couldn't even tell my own father about his true parentage. He doesn't know to this day that he was adopted. The only people who knew were me, Morrison, and the person who ran the parsonage, and kept the church records."

"Shortly after that time, I decided to do some more digging. Curse be damned, there was nothing to keep me from knowing the truth. I went to the little church to try to read the records there. Morrison never once tried to hide these records, but the protection he put on the records in the Hall of Records extended to the church records, and I couldn't even enter the little structure. I asked the parson to read the records for me, and he did. Everything I found out was confirmed, along with another little tidbit of information. I was shocked when I found out that my own father had a secret affair while married to my mother. That affair resulted in the birth of Claire. That was how I met her. You'll remember that I met her long before you did, Malfoy. In fact, I feel like it's my fault that she came into our lives."

"That means we have the same mother, but different fathers. That would make her only my half-sister, too. Did you ever tell her that she was your half-sister?" Candace asked.

"No, I couldn't really tell her the truth, because of the curse. Instead, I befriended her, and through me, she met Malfoy. That was when she decided that she wanted to marry him for his money. That was when I decided to try to stop her. If she believed that Draco wasn't the legitimate Malfoy heir, I thought she would back off, and we already had all the fake proof of Otto and Miriam's marriage set up by my uncle, so I just showed her all of that, but she never backed away. She faked a pregnancy to marry Draco, and to secure her future."

"You see, before they married, I told her the fake story of Miriam and Otto, the one that Morrison started. The story that I led Hermione to believe. He had already fabricated all the evidence that I thought I would need to make her believe the lies, so I told her that they were married, and that whoever their child was would be considered the real heir, and then I told her that I was searching for that heir. Little did I know how that one lie would throw all of this into motion."

"It doesn't matter, because she didn't get pregnant," Candace said.

"No, and then Malfoy divorced her. By this time, she thought that Malfoy wasn't the real heir anyway, but she also thought that I hadn't yet discovered who was, so she figured if she hid all the evidence of Miriam and Otto's 'marriage' then she could continue with her plan to get Malfoy's money. That was where you came in," Phillip said to the other woman.

Candace sat beside him and took his hand. "Why didn't you try to stop her? She's tried to ruin everyone's lives. She wants to control my son. She wants to kill Hermione Granger because she thinks that Hermione has discovered that Miriam and Otto married, and then had a child. She thought Hermione was writing a book about it. She destroyed her manuscript, and now she wants to kill the woman who wrote it."

"I'm sorry," Phillip told her. He looked toward Draco and said, "Everything's gotten out of control. At first, I really did think that Hermione was writing a book about the whole thing. I didn't know it was a piece of fiction. I told Claire that she was writing it. I let her continue to think that. I led her to believe that Hermione was writing that story. I showed Hermione the same marriage certificate, and tintype picture, and the paintings, that I originally showed Claire, in the hope that she would add it to her story. I really thought if Claire believed there was so much proof that they married and had a legitimate child that she would finally leave it all alone."

"Though I tried to lie to Hermione at first, too, I saw that she was too smart, and I thought hell, maybe I should try to reveal the real truth to her. Maybe that was the best way for it to come out. That would free us all, if the truth came out. I knew she would find out the reality when she read the real letters from Mr. Weasley."

"I didn't know that Claire would become unhinged, and want to hide all of these things. She was still hell bent on controlling the fortune through her sister, Candace, and her son. She was blackmailing Candace, isn't that right?" He looked over at Candace.

"Yes, she was. She killed my first husband, and she told me that she would make everyone believe that I killed him, and she's crafty enough to do just that, so I was afraid. She wanted Draco to get me pregnant, marry me, and make his son legitimate. She told me never to tell Draco that I was her sister. I was afraid of what she would do next. I think she planned on killing me and Draco, so that she could take over Thomas, and thus the fortune, for herself." Candace turned toward Phillip and said, "I wish you had told us all of this a long time ago. If the real truth had come out to the rest of us, we might have been able to stop her."

"I never thought the truth had to come out. I just wanted to find my half-sister. I had no idea she would become so obsessed with everything Malfoy. Now that Hermione knows the truth, she'll probably tell Claire everything. Hermione's life might be in even more danger now, because Claire will know that I lied to her, and she'll probably take out her anger on Hermione," Phillip surmised.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Claire was beyond angry. She was livid. She continued to scream. Hermione backed toward the little stone church. Claire said, "You must be lying! Phillip showed me all the evidence that Miriam and Otto married! That's the reason I'm doing all of this! That's the reason you're writing that story! If they never married, then Thomas is the rightful heir anyway, and everything I've done has been in vain!"

She turned toward Hermione and pointed her wand again. "You're the liar!" she screamed at Hermione. "You just want Draco and his money for yourself! You don't want my son to be legitimate!"

Hermione slowly said, "Your son?"

"I mean my nephew!" she screamed.

Hermione calmly said, "What are you planning?"

"Do you really want to know?" the other woman asked, calmer now, which scared Hermione even more. "I'll tell you my whole plan, because it doesn't matter if you know. You're going to die soon anyway. My plan is to find the last piece of evidence, the church records, which prove that Miriam and Otto married. My plan is to find out who their real heir is, and to kill that person. My plan is to kill you. My plan is to kill my sister!" Her voice began to take on a shrieking effect. "My plan is to kill Draco and then Thomas will naturally go to me and I will have MY MONEY!"

"Go get the damn proof yourself, then," Hermione said.

"Don't you think I've tried?" the other witch beckoned. "For some reason, each time I try to look at the damn church records, which are the last bit of evidence, I can't even enter the church! There must be some spell on it!"

Hermione realized that the woman was right. There must be a spell that prevents her from entering, similar to the enchantment that old Morrison placed on the real records at the hall of records, proving that Miriam and Otto never married, and the same enchantment that kept Phillip from revealing the truth of his father's parentage outright. She wondered, "How did you enter my cottage earlier?"

"I walked in, you stupid bint," Claire spat.

"There's an enchantment on my cottage, placed there by Otto to protect Miriam. Unless invited in, only an heir of a Malfoy or a Weasley can enter," Hermione explained.

"I was a Malfoy," the other woman said, baffled.

"I don't think that's it," Hermione said. Ignoring the unbalanced woman with the wand, (after all, Hermione had faced worse fears in her life) she turned and walked into the little church. Claire stood in the doorway, her wand at her side, a confused look on her face.

Hermione went to the altar behind the pulpit, opened up the top, and looked at all the old tomes inside. She found one with the dates "1925 to 1935" printed on the outside. She pulled this heavy book out and set it on the top of the stand at the pulpit. She opened it. She looked through several pages toward the middle.

Then she saw the truth.

_**Born: 1 April 1932, to Miriam Weasley and Otto Malfoy, a son, Albert Edward Weasley Malfoy. Parents never married. Adopted by Jonas and Annabelle Cranston, 14 April 1932. Name changed to Albert Jonas Cranston.**_

"What does it say?" the other woman asked.

"Just a moment." Hermione let her finger travel down to a footnote written in reference to that entry. It read, _**"See book 52, page 125, entry eleven."**_ Hermione placed this book on the top of front pew, and went to retrieve book 52.

"What are you doing?" Claire asked, still from the doorway. She stepped into the small building, but then some unseen force blocked her from entering, and she remained at the entry.

Hermione opened the other book. On page 125, Phillip's birth was recorded. It said nothing at all about being a Malfoy heir. However, written underneath Phillip's entry, and before the entry for Phillip's sister Adelphia, was another entry, written in a different handwriting.

This one read, _**"Born 16 October 1980, in London, Claire Marie Cranston, to Lucy Ryan and Albert Cranston. Parents not married. Child adopted by Lucy Ryan's husband, Nicholas Ryan."**_

Hermione looked up toward Claire and asked, "What's your mother's name?"

"Why?"

"Please," Hermione said.

"Lucy, why?"

Hermione shook her head. She knew she had to tread lightly. She said, "Is there a chance that your father wasn't your birth father?"

"How did you know that? No one knows that! My mother had an affair, with a pureblood I might add, which resulted in my birth, but only my mother, father and I know that!"

"It's written right here. That's how you entered the cottage. You're also an heir of Miriam and Otto's. Your Phillip's half-sister."

"YOU LIAR!" Claire ran into the church, but the same unknown force from earlier pulled her back out. She stood back in the doorway and said, "Tear out the pages that prove that Otto and Miriam married, and the ones that will tell me who their heir is, and then give them to me!"

Hermione was getting tired of this! She said, "Listen here, you stupid cow! I'm telling you that all this proves is what I've already told you! They didn't marry, so your nephew is the rightful heir all along! You've worked hard to secure his birthright, when it was already secure! Miriam and Otto didn't marry. Their son is Phillip's and your father! That's what this says! That's the truth!"

The other woman's head was spinning. She ran outside the little building, at a loss of what to do next. She didn't know what to believe. Was it that easy? Was Thomas the true heir after all? Was she really a Malfoy, albeit an illegitimate one? Hermione stood in the doorway, watching as Claire paced all around the little enclosed stone courtyard of the rectory, talking to herself, disturbed as ever.

Hermione saw Draco, Phillip and Candace approach the churchyard, from the side of graveyard. Claire hadn't yet seen them. It was quite dark out, though dawn was soon approaching, but Draco could tell that Hermione saw them. He held out his hand, for her to remain quiet.

Claire looked toward Hermione, and saw that she was looking at something behind her. She whipped around and saw the other three. She screamed in fury. "You lied to me!" She pointed her wand at Phillip.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to get to know my other sister, but I couldn't tell you the truth. I physically couldn't, because of the curse. I had to let you believe the lies that Morrison perpetrated…the lies that Miriam and Otto were married all along, because the curse kept me from telling you the truth. I had no idea that you would go to such elaborate means to get the Malfoy fortune. I just wanted to know you, but now I'm sorry that I do."

Claire turned to her sister and said, "I suppose you're happy now, right? Your precious little Thomas is the real heir after all!"

"None of that ever mattered to me," her sister stated.

She turned to Draco last and said, "And you make me the sickest of all! You get everything! You get your precious son, you get your money, and you get the woman you love! Well, I have it in my power to take away one of those things!" She turned her wand toward the little stone building, where Hermione still stood in the arched doorway, and she yelled out a spell with rage and wrath.

The building started to collapse, starting with the arched doorway. Hermione had no choice but to run deeper inside the building. She ran to the pulpit, kneeled on the floor, and ducked her head under the structure, as the building…stone, bricks, mortar, and wood, began to rain down around her.

Draco called Hermione's name as the building began to implode. Candace let out a scream, and Phillip rushed to Claire and knocked her off her feet.

Dust and debris flew all around them. Claire was underneath Phillip, whimpering.

"Help me," Draco said desperately to Phillip. Phillip stood from Claire, forgetting to take her wand, and he and Draco ran over to the collapsed, destroyed building, and began to remove the stones and debris with magic. Candace walked up to her sister, who remained crying on the ground, and she kneeled beside her.

The next thing that occurred happened fast. Claire scrambled to her feet, knocking Candace over on her back. She began to run through the graveyard. Candace struggled to stand, and started to run after her, calling her name.

Phillip took flight as well, leaving Draco alone to rescue Hermione. The truth was that Phillip felt that Hermione was probably dead, and he knew that he had to stop Claire before she killed anyone else.

Draco continued to search through the rubble for Hermione. He called out her name, frantically. Before he knew it, his father and several men and women had joined him in the graveyard.

"We went to that cottage, and you weren't there," his father said. "What happened here?"

"She's in there," Draco said softly, pointing toward the mess. Was this how it was to end? Was their love story to conclude with a tragic ending, just like Miriam and Otto's story, or were Hermione and Draco going to be given a second chance?

Lucius began barking orders to everyone. The other witches and wizards began to remove the rest of the rubble.

Daylight began to streak through the sky when they finished. When the last stone was unturned, and the last piece of wood removed, it was evident – no one was inside.

"I saw her, Father," Draco said. He felt close to tears. Then he finally thought about his son. He turned and said, "Where's Thomas?"

"At Carrington House with your mother, and he's well protected."

"Claire wants to kill us all and take him from us," Draco said, though he didn't have time to explain. "We have to find Hermione, and we have to get to Thomas, and then we have to find that crazy bitch!"

Father and son ran toward the gate that enclosed the graveyard, and that was when they saw such a horrific sight, which at first made Lucius flinched and Draco close his eyes.

It was Claire, crying over the body of her sister, Candace. The other woman was dead. She was killed with the killing curse. Close behind them, stood Phillip, who was also silently crying. Claire looked up and said, "I didn't really want to kill my sister. I didn't mean to kill her. She tried to stop me. She thought I was going to take Thomas. I don't think I would really have done that, Draco. Do you think I would have? I just wanted what I thought was due to me. Now that I know that I'm really an heir, I feel it's due to me even more, but that doesn't mean I wanted to kill her."

She continued to mumble incoherent things. Lucius looked toward Draco. Draco didn't know where to begin. He said to Phillip, "Phil, explain the story quickly to my father, and then take Claire into custody. After that, go check on my son."

"Did you find Hermione? Where's is she?" Phillip finally thought to ask.

"I don't really know." Draco didn't know, but he _would _find her.

"She wasn't in the wreckage?" Phillip asked.

"No, we didn't find her," Draco stated plainly.

"Thank our lucky stars!" Phillip exclaimed. "The protection worked!"

"What?" Draco asked.

"Morrison Cranston, who I hope will soon rot in prison for killing Otto, for blackmailing your grandfather all those years, and for committing all those lies for so long, couldn't do anything about the counter charm, placed by Otto so long ago."

He rushed up to Draco and said, "I read it in one of the letters when I was a child. You see, I used to visit Miriam when I was young. Of course, I now know that she knew I was her grandchild all along. She was always so kind and wonderful to me. I didn't know at the time of our connection, but I loved her like a grandmother anyway. In one of the letters from Otto to her, he stated that he was afraid that Morrison would try to hurt Miriam. He knew that my great uncle was infatuated, though it was unrequited, with Miriam. He told her never to fear, because he placed another charm on the little cottage, in addition to the one that made it so only Malfoys, Weasleys, and the people they loved could enter. This charm was a sort of honing device. If Miriam ever found herself in danger while here at the village, the little cottage would act as a sort of beacon, and would draw her to its protection. It's similar magic as a portkey, though no physical item is necessary for transportation. Hermione has to be at the cottage! The same magic that protected Miriam from Morrison has to extend to Hermione. Perhaps because you're a Malfoy, and she's the woman that you love, the magic works for you too, also. You've got a second chance with her, Malfoy! Go to the cottage. I'll take care of everything here. Go to Hermione!"

Draco apparated on the spot.

_Coming up: Happy Endings and Conclusions_


	22. 22 Happy Endings and Conclusions

**All characters belong to JKR**

**Chapter 22: Happy Endings and Conclusions:**

The outside of the cottage looked almost ominous in the purple haze of dawn. The sea below the cliff was loud and deafening in the wake of the morning, with waves crashing vociferously to the shore. There was an uncanny awareness surrounding Draco as he approached the door. Somehow, he knew everything was okay.

He opened the door, without calling her name, he walked right through the foyer, up the stairs, and he found her just where he knew he would. She was sitting at her writing desk, a piece of parchment in her hand. She was reading another letter. She turned when she heard his footsteps on the stairs. When he reached the top landing, she swiveled in the seat and waited for him to rush to her.

She dropped the letter from her hand and bounded to his arms.

"You're safe!" he said at the same time that she said, "You're okay!"

"What happened?" he asked.

"I was in the building one moment, it started to crash around me, when I felt a pull in the middle of my stomach, the same pull you feel when you side-along apparate, or use a portkey, and the next minute I'm landing in the front garden. The strangest thing of all is that I had this letter in my hand when I arrived. I don't even know how it got there." She turned from his grasp, and picked up the letter she had just dropped.

She handed it to him.

It was from Otto to Miriam. It was written the day he was killed.

* * *

_**My Miriam –**_

_**If you are reading this letter, then you must know that I have died. I wanted to meet you more than I have ever wanted anything. I wanted to marry you, and give our child my name, (Yes, I know that you're with child, and I have never been happier in my life) but sometimes fate has other plans for us.**_

_**If nothing else, let my life go on through our child. I will do my best to protect you both from harm all the days of my life, and on throughout my death. I have put safeguards all throughout the village, to protect you and our child. One of them is this letter. If any harm comes to you while you are in the village, this letter will come to you, and bring you safely back to the cottage.**_

_**You see, I'm just as good at magic as you, my dear, sweet, smart, girl. I love you so much. **_

_**My life is nothing without you. Life will be hard for us together and even harder now that we're apart. I know there are dangers out there for us, but I'll always try to keep you safe.**_

_**My love for you transcends death.**_

_**My love for you surpasses time.**_

_**Forgive me for not meeting you. It was never my intention to hurt you, but to protect you. Morrison Cranston threatened my life when I went to the church tonight to speak with the parish elder about marrying us in the morning. I am afraid he will try to stop the marriage at all cost, and if he does, he will pay for his sins someday.**_

_**If I meet you on the bluff overlooking the sea, and we are able to marry, then you will never see this letter, which makes this sentence a moot point. If I do not meet you, then I know that I met with a terrible ending, but know this, my life was better just having loved you.**_

_**I knew the moment I saw you walking down the street, with your hair blowing all around, and that twinkle in your eye, that I would make you mine, and I did, so I can die a happy man.**_

_**I love you forever, Your Otto**_

* * *

Draco read the letter aloud. He reached out for Hermione's hand and said, "Miriam and Otto never got their second chance."

"I know, I feel so sad about that," she said. She put her arms around his waist.

"Candace is dead," Draco said plainly.

Hermione lifted her head from his shoulder and said, "How?"

"Claire. She was her sister, and she killed her. She killed her own sister," Draco said.

"I know. She was Albert's illegitimate daughter, did you know? She was Phillip's half-sister, making her Otto and Miriam's granddaughter," Hermione explained.

"Yes, Phillip told us."

"What will happen to Claire?" Hermione asked.

"Hopefully she will rot in hell next to Morrison Cranston. When my father hears that old man Cranston killed his Uncle, I'm afraid his vengeance will be quick and just. Hermione, I hate to ask this of you, but can I go check on my son, and explain everything to my mother and father?"

"I would expect nothing else. Don't worry; I'll be here when you come back. I will never leave you," she said. She placed her cheek next to his, and then turned her head and kissed him.

"I'll never leave you either," he said. "Can we have our date tomorrow? The date we missed. The date I never showed up for, three summers ago, because I married Claire? It's important to me. I feel somehow it will make up for things, since Otto wasn't able to meet Miriam, as stupid as that may sound."

"I don't think it sounds stupid," she answered. "I feel profound sadness that Miriam had to spend her whole life without her son, and not ever knowing what happened to her love. I wish I could tell her somehow."

He smiled, but it felt false. At least he wouldn't have to spend his life without his son and his love, as if that was justice somehow. He pulled her to him so suddenly that she almost faltered. He placed his arms around her tightly, and he kissed her hard on the mouth. "Don't ever leave me." He ran his fingertips gently down her face and said, "If you do, I'll be seriously put out."

She laughed and said, "We don't want you to be put out."

He smiled once more and ran down the stairs, so he could apparate back to Carrington House to check on his son.

She read the letter once more, and then feeling overwhelmed, but inspired, she sat down to write. She had the perfect ending for her story.

* * *

_**(Hermione's Story)**_

_Chapter 34: The End_

_Waring saw her standing alone on the beach. She must have thought he had left her. She must have thought he would never show. He was supposed to meet her last night, on the bluff, but instead, his cousin Parrish tried to have him killed. He narrowly escaped with his life. _

_He felt turmoil, just watching her. Perhaps it would be better to let her believe that he had abandoned her. No, that might be easier on him, but not on her. He owed her so much…his life, his love, his happiness._

_He took several more steps toward her and said, "You look so beautiful, Miranda."_

_She turned; hand on chest, breath caught in her throat. "Where have you been? I thought you had left me. You didn't meet me."_

"_I know. I was busy warding off an early death. My cousin was intent on killing me, it seems," he said, somewhat unaffected._

_She ran to him, but stopped short. "Why did he try to kill you?"_

"_It seems that the church records proved that I am really Lord of the Manor, Lord Westlake. He's not. He thought it would be easier if I were gone. I also think he was misguided, and he wanted you for himself, but little did he know that my darling Miranda would never have gone for someone like him."_

_She smiled and said, "Whom shall I go for, if not someone handsome like Parrish?"_

"_Why, me, my dear. After all, we love each other, and I am now Lord of the Manor, and I need you by my side, because I don't know how to do that alone." He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. He continued to profess his love to her, and apologized for not showing up, and she was soon intoxicated by the smooth timbre of his voice, that she could no longer disconcert the words he spoke. She only knew one thing and that was that he was there. He hadn't abandoned her._

_She surrendered to his mouth, which was now on hers. Their combined passion consumed them both, and too soon, they were entwined together, and lying on his coat on the sand, the waves breaking closely around them, the pink light of the dawn breaking through what remained of the night sky._

"_I love you, Waring," she said. _

"_Good thing, Miranda, since I intend to make you my wife."_

"_Yes, good thing," she agreed._

_The End_

* * *

Draco tucked the last page of her manuscript behind all the others, and inserted it back into the large envelope in which he had removed it two hours before. She had finished her story just last night, and had sent it to him this morning. She told him to finish it before they had their date, and he did. He felt such conflicting emotions regarding the story, his love for her, and for Miriam and Otto.

He arrived at Theo's back garden hours before he was to meet Hermione. They had planned their date here, and it was perfect. First, this was the place where they fell in love, at that fateful picnic, three years prior, before he married Claire, and before the events of this summer. Second, Theo was out of the country, so they wouldn't be disturbed. Draco had everything planned, down to the fireworks that would end their evening. He sat back on the blanket and he turned his head slightly as he heard her approach. He smiled, an almost wicked smile, when he saw that she had on the white sundress with the little cherries.

"That's a pretty frock," he said.

"Do you like it?" She twirled once.

"Almost as much as I like you," he said, patting the space beside him. She sat down and saw the envelope with her story.

"You finished reading it?"

"Yes."

"What did you think?" She was anxious to hear what he thought.

"I think that I'm almost as happy that Miranda Gray, with an 'A' and Waring Glynn, with the 'Y' before the 'N', got their second chance at happiness, just like we did," he answered truthful. "I mean, I don't usually go for these period romances…"

She interrupted and said, "No, you're more into the classics, right? See Spot Run, and Peter Rabbit."

"I shall ignore your obvious defamation of my character and continue with my wave of thought," he stated. "As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, I don't usually go for flowery romances, but I think this is my new favourite, all-time story. Right up there with 'Pat the Bunny'."

She laughed and said, "Thomas loves that story, doesn't he?"

"So does his old man," Draco responded.

Hermione looked at the other side of Draco, where his son slept in a bassinet, which was on the ground, placed on the other side of the blanket. She leaned over Draco's lap and stroked the little boy's hair. "He's so sweet."

"Takes after me," Draco said, rubbing his hand on her back.

She sat back down beside him and asked, "Do you think I'll make him a good mother?"

"If I decide to marry you, probably," he said, "but Granger dear, this is our first date, so it's a bit early to be talking marriage."

"Right, too early," she said with a grin. "Just answer me this, do you love me?"

Instead of answering, he pulled her to him, and with his hands on her cheeks, he pushed her hair away from her face, and kissed her forehead. He kissed her right cheek, then her left, and then her earlobe. He kissed down her jaw to her neck, and then back up the other side of her face. His hands moved from her hair down to her shoulders. He rubbed his hands up and down her shoulders several times, before moving one to her back, and one back to her face. The hand on her back pressed her to him, and the one on her face stroked her cheek, before he leaned forward to kiss her again.

He kissed her for what felt like infinity, and then he licked her bottom lip, and kissed her again. His tongue licked her top lip, and then he kissed her some more.

He parted from her and asked suddenly, "Do you love me?"

Taking his cue, she decided to 'show' him her answer, the way he showed her. She kissed his forehead, the way he had kissed her, and then his mouth, as her answer. Hermione sank her tongue deeply in his mouth, to show him exactly how much she loved him.

Right there in Theo's back garden, with the baby asleep beside them, Draco set up an illusion charm, and then he removed his clothing. He leaned over her, and placed his hand on her chest between her breasts. He moved one strap of her sundress down her arm and kissed the swell of breasts that peeked above the neckline of the dress. He pulled her to him, so she was over him, and he was back on his back. She bent over him and kissed his chest, as his hand went to the zipper on the back of her dress. He unzipped it slowly, his fingers moving down her spine as the zipper glided down the dress.

Before they knew it, they were in the act of making love, under a tree, with the sun streaking through the branches. They both tried to remain as quiet as they could, so not to wake baby Thomas.

After they showed their love for each other, and they dressed once more, Draco opened a picnic basket and removed wine, wine glasses, cheese and crackers.

He opened the wine, poured some into two glasses, and handed one to her. He took a drink from his glass, and as she started to drink from hers, he said, "Granger, what's in the bottom of your glass?"

She held it up to the light and said, "It appears to be a diamond ring, imagine that." Playing along, she took a big swig of the white wine.

"I wonder how that got in there," he asked.

"Heaven only knows, Malfoy," she answered in fake disdain. She reached inside with her index finger and held it up toward the sun again. "It's sort of pretty."

"It looks old. I hear it's an heirloom," he said.

"How did you hear that? From the ring fairy?" she asked. She dried the ring on the end of her dress.

"No, I heard it from my father, who said that he found it in the attic many years ago, and apparently it was the ring that Otto had intended to give to Miriam."

She looked at him, astounded. "You're lying."

"Usually I would feel that you were justified if you said that, but this time it's unwarranted." He picked up his sleeping son and said, "Don't let our son hear his mother say such unflattering things about his dear old dad." Draco smiled and reached over with one hand, touched her cheek, and asked, "Shall I put it on you?"

"If you intend to ask me to marry you, then it would be best." She held out her hand.

He placed the ring on her finger and looked down at his son. He kissed the baby's head and then placed him back in the bassinet beside them. He reached for Hermione's hand and pulled her over to him. He lay down on his back, with her leaning on his chest. "It fits."

"So do we." She looked at her ring.

"Then shall we?" he asked.

"Get married, you mean?"

"You're so smart, aren't you? Yes, get married. My son's father needs a wife."

She smiled, kissed his lips languidly, and then she placed her head back on his chest. She looked at her hand once more and said, "I can't believe this is Miriam and Otto's ring. I feel like this is their second chance at love too, through us."

He smiled. He felt happier than he had ever felt in his whole life. She propped herself up on her elbows and said, "Malfoy, I've never known you to be this quiet. What do you think?"

"I just think that this is such a happy ending, that it almost makes me sick." She hit his chest, as hard as she could, and sat back up. He sat beside her and said, "Oh well, all of those romantic suckers out there, in which apparently I am one, demands that stories end happily, and who are we to disagree? At least two of the three stories got to have a happy ending."

"Two?" she asked.

"The story of Miranda Gray, with the A, and Waring Glynn, Y before N, and the story of Draco and Hermione," he explained. He lay back down, pulling her down with him.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, drawing small circles on his chest, her face leaning up to look into his eyes. "I rather think Miriam and Otto are finally getting their happy ending, too, because it's through them that we obtained our happy ending."

"Well, when put like that, who am I to argue?" he asked with a smile.

"Quite right, Malfoy," she agreed. "Quite right."

The Happy Ending, really


End file.
